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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
mnrvoiuc • boston • Chicago 

SAM FRANCISCO 

MACMILLilN & CO., Lncmo 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MBLBOURNB 

MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lm 

TOIOMTO 



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MOTHERS TO MEN 



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ZONA GALE 

AOTHOR OF ^FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE,'* *< FRIENDSHIP YILLAOB 

LOVE STORIES," <<THE LOVES OF PKLLBAS 

AMD BTARRB^" KIC 



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PUBLIC LIE-.ARY 

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COPViaGIIT, Z9TZ, BY TrB ButtBSICK PtTBUSHlMG COMPANY, TH« "RxDGKWAT 

CoMPAKY, Tm Ckowbll Pubushino Company, and Thb Standakd 

Fashion Company. 

COPYKIGHT, zgzz, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, zgzz. Reprinted 
October, December, zgzz. 



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Korwood, Mmi., n.8.A. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 



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MOTHERS TO MEN 

"Daddy!'' 

The dark was so thick with hurrying rain that 
the child's voice was drowned. So he splashed 
forward a few steps in the mud and puddles of 
the highway and plucked at the coat of the man 
tramping before. The man took a hand from 
a pocket and stooped somewhat to listen, still 
plodding ahead. 

" Daddy ! It's the hole near my biggest toe. 
My biggest toe went right through that hole 
an' it chokes my toe awful." ^ 

The man suddenly squatted in the mud, pre- 
senting a broad, scarcely distinguishable back. 

"Climb up," he commanded. 

The boy wavered. His body ached with 
weariness, his feet were sore and cold, something 
in his head was numb. But in a moment he 
ran on, two steps or three, past the man. 

"Nope," he said, "I'm seeing if I could walk 
all the way. I could — yet. I just told you 
'bout my toe, daddy, 'cause I had to talk about 



it." 



2 MOTHERS TO MEN 

The man said nothing, but he rose and groped 
for the child's arm and got it about the arm- 
pit, and, now and then as they walked, he pulled 
the shoulder awkwardly upward, trying to 
help. 

After a time of silence the rain subsided a 
little, so that the child's voice was less like a 
drowned butterfly. 

"Daddy," he said, "what's velvet V' 

"I dunno, sonny. Some kind of black cloth, 
I guess. Why?'' 

"It came in my head," the child explained. 
"I was try in' to think of nice things. Velvet 
sounds like a king's clothes — but it sounds 
like a coffin too. I didn't know if it's a nice 
thing." 

This, the man understood swiftly, was because 
her coffin had been black velvet — the coffin 
which he had had no money to buy for her, 
for his wife and the boy's mother, the coffin 
which had been bought with the poor fund of 
a church which he had never entered. "What 
other nice thing you been thinkin' of ? " he 
asked abruptly. 

"Circus. An' angels. An' ice-cream. An' 
a barrel o' marbles. An' bein' warm an' clean 
stockin's an' rocked. . . ." 

"My God!" said the man. 



MOTHERS^ TO MEN 3 

The child looked up expectantly. 

**Did he say anything back ?'* he inquired 
eagerly. 

"Not a word/* said the man in his throat. 

"Lemme try," said the child. "God — oh, 
God — God dearT^ he called into the night. 

From the top of the hill on the edge of the 
Pump pasture which in that minute they had 
reached, they suddenly saw, cheery and yellow 
and alive, the lamps of Friendship Village, 
shining in the valley; and away at one side, 
less in serene contemplation than in deliberate 
withdrawal, shone the lights of a house set alone 
on its hill. 

"Oh, daddy, daddy — look at the lights !'' 
the child cried. "God didn't say nothin' with 
words. Maybe he talks with lights instead of 
em. 

The man quickened his steps until, to keep 
pace with him, the little boy broke into uneven 
running. 

"Is those lights where we're goin', daddy?" 
he asked. 

"That's where," said the man. He put his 
hand in his pocket and felt for the fifteen cents 
that lay there, wrapped in paper. The fancied 
odour and warmth of something to drink caught 
at him until he could hardly bear the longing. 



4 MOTHERS TO MEN 

But before he could get to the drink he must 
do something else. The man had been fighting 
away the thought of what he meant to do. 
But when they entered the village and were 
actually upon its main street, lonely in the rainy, 
eight o'clock summer dusk, what he meant to 
do had to be faced. So he began looking this 
way and that for a place to leave the child. 
There was a wagon shop. Old wagons stood 
under the open shed, their thills and tongues 
hanging, not expectant of journeys like those 
of new wagons, but idle, like the worn arms of 
beaten men. Some men, he thought, would 
leave the boy there, to sleep under a seat and 
be found in the morning ; but he was no such 
father as that, he reflected complacently. He 
meant to leave the boy in a home, give him 
a fair start. There was a little house with a 
broken picket fence — someway she wouldn't 
have liked him to be there; she always liked 
things nice. He had never been able to give 
the boy much that was nice, but now, he said 
to himself, he would take nothing second rate. 
There was a grocery with a light above stairs 
where very likely the family lived, and there, 
too, was a dry stairway where the child could 
sit and wait until somebody came — no, not 
there either. . . . "The best ain't none too 
good for the little fellow," thought the man. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 



€i 



Dsid-^e ! " cried the child suddenly. 

He had run a few steps on and stood with his 
nose against the misty pane of Abagail Arnold's 
Home Bakery. Covered with pink mosquito- 
netting were a plate of sugar rolls, a fruit cake, 
a platter of cream puffs, and a tall, covered jar 
of shelled nuts. 

"Hustle up — you!'* said the man roughly, 
and took him by the arm again. 

"I was comin'," said the little boy. 

Why not leave the child at the bakery ? No 
— a house. It must be a house, with a porch 
and a front stair and big upstairs rooms and 
a look of money-in-the-bank. He was giving 
care to the selection. It was as if he were exer- 
cising some natural paternal office, to be scru- 
pulously discharged. Music issued from the 
wooden saloon building with the false two-story 
front and the coloured windows ; from a protest- 
ing piano a dance tune was being furiously 
forced, and, as the door swung open, the tap 
and thud of feet, the swell of voices and 
laughter, the odour of the spirits caught at the 
cold and weary man. "Hurry along — hurry 
along!" he bade the boy roughly. That was 
where he would come back afterward, but first 
he must find the right place for the boy. 

Vaguely he was seeking for that section of 



6 MOTHERS TO NfEN 

the village which it would call "the residence 
part/' with that ugly and naked appropriation 
of the term which excludes all the humbler 
homes from residence-hood at all. But when 
he had turned aside from the main street he 
came upon the First Church, with lights stream- 
ing from the ground-glass windows of the prayer- 
meeting room, and he stood still, staring up at 
it. 

She had cared a good deal about that sort of 
thing. Churches did good — it was a church 
that had buried her when he could not. Why 
not there ? Why not leave the child there ? 

He turned aside and mounted the three wooden 
steps and sat down, drawing the boy beside him. 
Grateful for a chance to rest, the child [turned 
sidewise and dropped his head heavily on his 
father's arm. There was light enough for the 
father to see the thick, wet hair on the babyish 
forehead. 

"I did walked all the way, didn't I ?" the chUd 
said triumphantly. 

"You bet you did," said his father absently. 

Since the boy's mother had died only three 
months had passed, but in that time had been 
crowded for the child a lifetime of physical 
misery. Before that time, too, there had been 
hunger and cold and the torture of the continual 



MOTHERS TO MEN 7 

quarreling between that mother, sickly, half- 
fed, irritable, and this father, out of work and 
drunken. Then the mother had died, and the 
man Had started out with the boy, seeking new 
work where they would not know his old vice. 
And in these three months, for the boy's sake, 
that old vice had been kept bound. For the 
boy's sake he had been sober and, if the chance 
had come, he would have been industrious. 
But, save for odd jobs, the chance never came ; 
there seemed to be a kind of ineffectualness 
in the way he asked for work which forbade 
him a trial. Then one day, after almost three 
months of the struggle, he had waked to the 
old craving, to the need, the instant need, for 
liquor. He had faced the situation honestly. 
He knew, or thought he knew, his power of 
endurance. He knew that in a day or two he 
would be worsted, and that there would follow 
a period of which, afterward, he would remem- 
ber nothing. Meanwhile, what of the boy? 
He had a fondness for the boy, and there re- 
mained to the man some shreds of decency and 
even of tradition. He would not turn him over 
to the "authorities." He would not cast him 
adrift in the city. He resolved to carry him to 
the country, to some near little town where, 
dimly it seemed to him, the people would be 



8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

more likely to take him in. "They have more 
time — an' more room — an* more to eat/* 
he sought to explain it to himself. So he had 
walked, and the child had walked, from the 
City to Friendship Village. He must find a 
place to leave him : why not leave him here 
on the church steps, "outside the meetin* ?" 

"Don't you go to sleep, kiddie," he said, and 
shook him lightly. 

"I was jus' restin' my eye-flaps. Eye-things. 
What are they, daddy ? " 

"Eye-lids." 

"Yes. Them. They're tired, too," said the 
child, and smiled — the sleepy smile which gave 
his face a baby winsomeness. Then he snuggled 
in the curve of arm, like a drowsy, nosing puppy. 

The father sat looking down on him, and in 
his breast something pulled. In these three 
months he had first become really acquainted 
with the boy, had first performed for him little 
personal offices — sewed on a button or two, 
bought him shoes, bound up a hurt finger. In 
this time, too, he had first talked with him alone, 
tried to answer his questions. "Where is my 
mamma, an' will she rock somebody else?" 
"Are you going to be my daddy till you die, 
an' then who'll be?" "What is the biggest 
thing everybody knows ? Can I know it too ?" 



MOTHERS TO MEN 9 

. • . Also, in these three months, at night he 
had gone to sleep, sometimes in a bed, oftener 
in a barn, now and again under the stars, with 
the child breathing within his reach, and had 
waked to keep him covered with his own coat. 
Now he was going to end all this. 

"It ain^t fair to the kid not to. It ain't fair 
to cart him around like this," he said over and 
over, defending himself before some dim dis- 
senter. 

The boy suddenly swung back from his father's 
arm and looked up in his face. "Will — will 
there be any supper till morning ?" he asked. 

You might have thought that the man did 
not hear, he sat so still looking down the wet 
road-ruts shining under the infrequent lamps. 
Hunger and cold, darkness and wet and ill-luck 
— why should he not keep the boy from these ? 
It was not deserting his child; it was giving 
him into better hands. It did not occur to him 
that the village might not accept the charge. 
Anything would be better than what he himself 
had to give. Hunger and cold and dark- 
ness. . • . 

"You stay still here a minute, sonny," said 
the man. 

** You goin' Vay ?" the child demanded. 
A minute. You stay still here — right 



« 



lo MOTHERS TO MEN 

where you are," said the man, and went into 
the darkness. 

The little boy sat stilL He was wide awake 
now that he was alone; the walls of the dark 
seemed suddenly to recede, and instead of merely 
the church steps there was the whole black, 
listening world to take account of. He sat 
alert, trying to warm each hand on the cold 
wrist of its fellow. Where had his father gone ? 
To find them a place to stay ? Suppose he came 
back and said that he had found them a home ; 
and they should go to it ; and it would have a coal 
stove and a bedstead, and a pantry with cookies 
and brown sugar in the jars. And a lady would 
come and cook molasses candy for him. . . . 

All this time something was hurting him in- 
tolerably. It was the foot, and the biggest toe, 
and the hole that was "choking" him. He 
fumbled at his shoe laces, but they were wet 
and the shoes were wet and sodden, and he gave 
it up. Where had his father gone ? How big 
the world seemed when he was gone, and how 
different the night was. And when the lady 
had the molasses candy cooked, like in a story, 
she would cool it at the window and they would 
cut it in squares. . . . 

As suddenly as he had gone, his father re- 
appeared from the darkness* 



MOTHERS TO MEN ii 

"Here/* he said roughly, and thrust in the 
child's hands a paper bag. And when he had 
opened it eagerly there were sugar rolls and 
cream puffs and a piece of fruit cake and some 
shelled nuts. Fifteen cents' worth of food, 
badly enough selected, in all conscience, but — 
fifteen cents' worth. The fifteen cents which 
the man had been carrying in his pocket, 
wrapped in paper. 

"Now set there," said his father, "an' eat 
'em up. An' listen, son. Set there till folks 
come out from in there. Set there till they come 
out. An' here's somethin' I'm puttin' in your 
coat pocket — see ? It's a paper. Don't you 
look at it. But when the folks come out from 
in there — an' ask you anything — you show 
'em that. Remember. Show 'em that." 

In the prayer-meeting room the reed organ 
sent out some trembling, throaty chords, and 
the little group in there sang an old melody. 
It was strange to the man, as he listened — 

" Break thou the bread of life 
To me, to me — " 

but, "That's it," he thought, "that's it. Break 
it to him — I can't. All I can give him is stuff 
in a paper bag, an' not always that. Now you 
break it to him — " 



12 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"Dad-^^ !'' cried the child. "You !" 

Startled, the man looked down at him. It 
was almost like a counter charge. But the child 
was merely holding out to him half his store. 
The man shook his head and went down the 
steps to the sidewalk and turned to look back 
at the child munching happily from the paper 
sack. "Break it to him — break it to him — 
God!'' the father muttered, as he might have 
used a charm. 

Again the child looked out expectantly. 

"Did he say anything back?'' he asked 
eagerly. 

"Not a word — not a word," said the man 
again. This time he laughed, nervously and 
foolishly. "But mebbe he will," he mumbled 
superstitiously . " I dunno. Now, you set there. 
An' then you give 'em the paper — an' go with 
anybody out o' the church that asks you. Dad 
may not get back for — quite a while. . . ." 

The man went. The child, deep in the de- 
light of a cream puff, wondered and looked after 
him troublously, and was vaguely comforted 
by the murmur of voices beyond the doors. 

"Why, God didn't answer back because he 
was to the church meeting," the child thought, 
when he heard the people moving about within. 



il 



"Inside the church that night," Calliope 
Marsh is wont to tell it, " the Friendship Married 
Ladies Cemetery Improvement Sodality was 
having one of our special meetings, with hot 
chocolate and ice lemonade and two kinds of 
wafers. There wasn't a very big attendance, 
account of the rain, and there was so much re- 
freshments ready that us ladies was urgin' the 
men to have all they wanted. 

"'Drink both kinds, Timothy,' Mis Toplady 
says to her husband, persuadin' ; * it'll have to be 
throwed away if somebody don't drink it up.' 

"'Lord, Amandy,' says Timothy, testy, 'I 
do hate to be sicked on to my food like that. It 
takes away my appetite, same as poison would.' 

" ' They always do it, ' says Jimmy Sturgis, 
morose. 'My wife'U say to me, " Jimmy, eat up 
them cold peas. They'll spoil if you don't," and, 
"Jimmy, can't you make 'way with them cold 
pancakes?" Till I wish't I could starve.' 

"'Well, if you hadn't et up things,' says Mis' 
Sturgis, mild, 'we'd of been scrappin' in the 
poor-house by now. I dunno but I'd ruther 
scrap where I am.' 

13 



14 MOTHERS TO MEN 

" * Sure ! * says Postmaster Silas Sykes, that 
always pours oil on troubled waters except when 
the trouble is his own; and then he churns 
them. 

"*I dunno what ailed me in business meeting 
to-night/ says Mis^ Holcomb-that-was-Mame 
Bliss. ^ I declare, I was full as nervous as a witch. 
I couldn't keep my feet still anywheres. ' 

"^The fidgets/ comprehends Mis' Uppers, 
sympathetic. * I get 'em in my feet 'long toward 
night sometimes. Turn an' twist an' shift — I 
know the feeling. Whenever my feet begin that, 
I always give right up an' take off my shoes an' 
get into my rubbers. ' 

" * Well, I wish't I had some rubbers now,' says 
Mis' Mayor Uppers • * I wore my best shoes out to 
tea an' come right from tea here, like a maniac. 
An' now look at me, in my Three DoUar-and-a- 
half kids an' the streets runnin' rivers.' 

" * You take my rubbers,' Mis' Timothy Top- 
lady offered. * I've set with 'em on all evening 
because I always get 'em mixed up at Sodality, 
an' I declare the water'U feel good to my poor 
feet. ' 

"*No, no, don't you trouble,' says Mis' 
Uppers. *ril just slip my shoes off an' track 
that one block in my stocking feet. TJien I'll 
put 'em in good, hot water an' go to bed. I 



MOTHERS TO MEN 15 

wouldn't of come out to-night at all if it hadn't 
of been for the professor.' 

"*For goodness' sakes,' I says, * don't call 
him that. You know how he hates it. ' 

" * But I do like to say it,' Mis' Uppers in- 
sists, wistful. *He's the only professor I ever 
knew.' 

" * Me either,' I says — and I knew how she 
felt. 

"Just the same, we was getting to like Mr. 
Insley too much to call him that if he didn't 
want it, or even ^ doctor ' that was more common, 
though over to Indian Mound College, half way 
between us and the City, he is one or both, and 
I dunno but his name tapers off with capital 
letters, same as some. 

"*I just came over here to work,' he told us 
when we first see him. * I don't profess anything. 
And "doctor" means teacher, you know, and I'm 
just learning things. Must you have a formal 
title for me ? Won't Mr. do ? ' 

"Most of the College called him just * Insley,' 
friendly and approving, and dating back to his 
foot-ball days, and except when we was speaking 
to him, we commonly got to calling him that too. 
A couple of months before he'd come over from 
the College with a letter of introduction from 
one of the faculty to Postmaster Silas Sykes, 






i6 MOTHERS TO MEN 

that is an alderman and our professional leading 
citizen. The letter from the College said that 
we could use Mr. Insley in any local civic work 
we happened to be doing. 

" * Civic work ? ^ Silas says to him, thoughtful. 
*You mean shuttin^ up saloons an' like that ?' 

"*Not necessarily/ he told him. ^ Just work 
with folks, you know.' 

*Well-a, settin' out bushes ?' Silas asks. 
^Whatever you're most interested in, Mr. 
Sykes,' says he. * Isn't there some organization 
that's doing things here ? ' 

"Silas wasn't interested in so very much of 
anything except Silas. But the word * organiza- 
tion' helped him out. 

"^There's the Friendship Married Ladies Cem- 
etery Improvement Sodality,' says he. ^That 
must be the very kind of a thing you mean.' 

" Insley laughed a little, but he let Mis' Sykes, 
that loves new things and new people, bring him 
to our next evening meeting in the church par- 
lors, and he'd been back several times, not say- 
ing much, but just getting acquainted. And 
that rainy night, when the men met with us to 
talk over some money raising for Sodality, we'd 
asked him to come over too. We all liked him. 
He had a kind of a used-to-things way, and you 
felt like you'd always known him or, for the time 



MOTHERS TO MEN 17 

you hadn't, that you'd both missed something 
out; and he had a nice look too, a look that 
seemed to be saying ^good morning' and to 
be beginning a fine, new day — the best day 
yet, 

" He'd set there kind of broodin' the most of 
that evening, drinking whatever anybody 
brought him, but not putting his mind to it so 
very much ; but it was a bright broodin', an' one 
that made you think of something that's going to 
open and not just of something that's shut 
up. You can brood both ways, but the effect 
is as different as a bud from a core. 

"^Speakin' of money raisin' for Sodality,' 
says Silas Sykes, kind of pretend hearty and 
pretend casual, like he does, *why don't Sodality 
make some money off'n the Fourth of July ? 
Everybody else is.' 

(" Sodality always speaks of itself and of the 
Cemetery real intimate, without the the, an' 
everybody's got to doing it.) 

"Us ladies all set still and kept still. The 
Fourth of July, that was less than a week off, was 
a sore point with us, being we'd wanted a cele- 
bration that would be a celebration, and not 
merely a money-raiser for the town. 

"'Oh, I say canvass, house to house,' says 
Timothy. * Folks would give you a dime to get 



i8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

you off'n the front porch that wouldn't come 
out to a dime entertainment, never/ 

"*Why not ask them that's got Dead in their 
own families, to pay out for 'em, an' leave them 
alone that's got livin' mouths to feed ? ' says 
Threat Hubbelthwait, querulous. Threat ain't 
no relations but his wife, and he claims to 'have 
no Dead of his own. I always say they must 
be either living or dead, or else where's Threat 
come in ? But he won't admit it. 

"* What you raisin' money for anyhow ?' asks 
Eppleby Holcomb, quiet. Eppleby always 
keeps still a long time, and then lets out some- 
thing vital. 

"As a matter of fact. Sodality didn't have no 
real work on hand. Cemetery lookin' real neat 
and tasty for Cemetery, and no immediate dead 
coming on as far as we could know; but we 
didn't have much of anything in the treasury, 
either. And when we didn't have any work on 
hand, we was in the habit of raising money, and 
when we'd got some money earnt, we was in the 
habit of devising some nice way to spend it. And 
so we kept Sodality real alive. 

"*Well, there may not be any active dead 
just now,' Mis' Sykes explains it, *but they are 
sure to die and need us. We had two country 
funerals to pay for last year. Or I might say, 






MOTHERS TO MEN 19 

one an' a half, one corpse contributing half enough 
for his own support in Cemetery/ 

"With that Insley spoke up, kind of firm and 
nice, with muscles in his tone, like he does : 

"* What's the matter with doing something 
with these folks before they die ?' he asks. 

" I guess we all looked kind of blank — like 
when you get asked why Columbus discovered 
America and all you know how to answer is just 
the date he done so on. 

Well-a,' says Mis' Sykes, Mo what ?' 
* Mustn't there be something to do with them, 
living, if there's everything to be done for them, 
dead ?' Insley asks. 

"'Well-a,' says Mis' Sykes, *I don't know that 
I understand just how you mean that. Perhaps 
the Mission Band — ' 

"^ No,' says Insley. *You. Us.' 

"I never knew a man to say so little and yet 
to get so much said. 

"*Well-a,' says Mis' Sykes, *of course Sodality 
was formed with the idee of caring for Cemetery. 
You see that lets in the Dead only.' 

"'Gosh,' says Eppleby Holcomb, *how ex- 
clusive.' But I don't know as anybody heard him 
but me. 

"*I know,' says Insley, slow. 'Well, at any 
rate, perhaps there are things that all of us Liv- 



20 MOTHERS TO MEN 

ing might do together — for the sake, say, of 
earning some money for the Dead. ThereM be 
no objection to that, would there ?' 

"^Oh, no,' says Mis' Sykes. Tm sure nobody 
could take exception to thaU Of course you 
always have to earn money out of the living.' 

" Insley looked at us all kind of shy — at one 
and another and another of us, like he thought 
he might find some different answer in some- 
body's eyes. I smiled at him, and so did Mis' 
Toplady, and so did Eppleby ; and Mis' Eleanor 
Emmons, the widow-lady, lately moved in, she 
nodded. But the rest set there like theif faces 
was oh wrong side out and didn't show no true 
pattern. 

"^I mean,' he says, not quite knowing how to 
make us understand what he was driving at, * I 
mean, let's get to know these folks while they 
are alive. Aren't we all more interested in folks, 
than we are in their graves 'i ' 

'''Folks; Timothy Toplady says over, medita- 
tive, like he'd heard of members, customers, 
clients, murderers and the like, but never of 
folks. 

"*I mean,' Insley says again, *oh, any one of 
a dozen things. For instance, do something jolly 
that'll give your young people something to do 
evenings — get them to help earn the money for 



MOTHERS TO MEN 21 

Cemetery, if you want to/ he adds, laughing a 
little. 

"* There's goin' to be a Vigilence Committee 
to see after the young folks of Friendship Village, 
nights,' says Silas Sykes, grim. 

"*You might have town parties, have the 
parties in schools and in the town hall,' Insley 
goes on, ^and talk over the Cemetery that be- 
longs to you all, and talk over the other things 
besides the Cemetery that belong to you all. 
Maybe I could help,' he adds, ^ though I own 
up to you now I'm really more fond of folks 

— speaking by and large — than I am of tomb- 
stones.' 

"He said a little more to us, about how folks 
was doing in the world outside the village, and 
he was so humorous about it that they never 
knew how something inside him was hopping 
with hope, like I betted it was, with his young, 
divine enthusiasm. And when he'd got done he 
waited, all grave and eager, for somebody to 
peep up. And it was, as it would be, Silas Sykes 
who spoke first. 

"*It's all right, it's all right,' says he, *so long 
as Sodality don't go meddling in the village affairs 

— petitionin' the council and protestin' an' so on. 
That gets any community all upset.' 

* That's so,' says Timothy, nodding. *Meet- 



ic 



22 MOTHERS TO MEN 

in', singin* songs, servin' lemonade an' plantin' 
things in the ground is all right enough. It helps 
on the fellow feelin' amazin'. But pitchin' in for 
reforms and things — ' Timothy shook his head. 

"'As to reforms,' says Insley, 'give me the 
fellowship, and the reforms will take care of them- 
selves.' 

"'Things is quite handy about takin' their 
course, though,' says Silas, 'so be we don't 
yank open the cocoons an' buds an' others.' 

"'Well,' says Mis' Uppers, 'I can't do much 
more. Professor. I'm drove to death, as it is. I 
don't even get time to do my own improvin' 
round the place.' Mis' Uppers always makes 
that her final argument. ' Sew for the poor ? ' 
I've heard her say. 'Why, I can't even get my 
own fall sewing done.' 

"'Me, too,' and, 'Me, either,' went round the 
circle. And, 'I can't do a great deal myself,' 
says Mis' Sykes, 'not till after my niece goes 
away. ' 

" I thought, ' I shouldn't think you could tend 
to much of anything else, not with Miss Beryl 
Sessions in the house.' That was the Sykes's 
niece, till then unknown to them, that we'd all 
of us heard nothing but, since long before she 
come. But of course I kept still, part because I 
was expecting an unknown niece of my own 



MOTHERS TO MEN 23 

in a week or so, and your unknown relatives is 
quite likely to be glass houses. 

"'Another thing/ says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 
* don't let's us hold any doin's in this church, 
kicking up the new cork that the Ladies' Aid has 
just put down on the floor. It'll all be tracked 
up in no, time, letting in Tom, Dick, and Harry.' 

" * Don't let's get the church mixed up in any- 
thing outside, for pity's sakes,' says Silas. 'The 
trustees'U object to our meeting here, if we quit 
working for a dignified object and go to making 
things mutual, promiscuous. Churches has got 
to be church-like.' 

"'Well, Silas,' says Eppleby Holcomb, that 
hadn't been saying anything, ' I donno as some 
of us could bring ourselves to think of Christ 
as real Christ-like, if he come back the way he 
use' to be.' 

"Insley sat looking round on them all, still 
with his way of saying good morning on a good 
day. I wondered if he wasn't wishing that 
they'd hang on that way to something worth 
hanging to. For I've always thought, and I 
think now, that they's a-plenty of stick-to-it- 
iveness in the world; but the trouble is, it's 
stuck to the wrong thing. 

"The talk broke up after that, like somebody 
had said something in bad taste; and we con- 



24 MOTHERS TO MEN 

versed around in groups, and done our best to 
make 'way with the refreshments. And Insley 
set talking to Mis' Eleanor Emmons, the new 
widow, lately moved in. 

"About Mis' Emmons the social judgment of 
Friendship Village was for the present hanging 
loose. This was partly because we didn't under- 
stand her name. 

"^My land, was her husband a felon or a 
thief or what that she don't use his name ? ' every- 
body asked everybody. * What's she stick her 
own name in front of his last name like that 
for ? Sneaked out of usin' his Christian name as 
soon as his back was turned, / call it,' said 
some. *My land, I'd use my dead husband's 
forename if it was Nebuchadnezzar. My opin- 
ion, we'd best go slow till she explains herself.' 
But I guess Insley had more confidence. 
^You'll help, I know?' I heard him say to 
Mis' Emmons. 

"*My friend,' she says back, * whatever I can 
do I'll do. It's a big job you're talking about, 
you know.' 

*It's the big job,' says Insley, quiet. 
Pretty soon Mis' Toplady got up on her feet, 
drawing her shawl up her back. 

"*Well,' she says, * whatever you decide, 
count on me — I'll always do for chinkin' in. 









MOTHERS TO MEN 25 

IVe got to get home now and set my bread 
or it won't be up till day after to-morrow. 
Ready, Timothy ? Good night all/ 

"She went towards the door, Timothy fol- 
lowing. But before they got to it, it opened, and 
somebody come in, at the sight of who Mis' Top- 
lady stopped short and the talk of the rest of us 
fell away. No stranger, much, comes to Friend- 
ship Village without our knowing it, and to have 
a stranger walk unbeknownst into the very 
lecture-room of the First Church was a thing we 
never heard of, without he was a book agent or a 
travelling man. 

"Here, though, was a stranger — and such 
a stranger. She was so unexpected and so daz- 
zling that it shot through my head she was like 
a star, taking refuge from all the roughness and 
the rain outside — a star, so it come in my head, 
using up its leisure on a cloudy night with 
peepin' in here and there to give out brightness 
anyway. The rough, dark cheviot that the 
girl wore was sort of like a piece of storm-cloud 
clinging about that brightness — a brightness 
of wind-rosy face and blowy hair, all uncovered. 
She stood on the threshold, holding her wet um- 
brella at arm's length out in the entry. 

"^I beg your pardon. Are you ready, Aunt 
Eleanor ? ' she asked. 



26 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"Mis' Eleanor Emmons turned and looked at 
her. 

"* Robin!' she says. *Why, you must be 
wet through.' 

"*I'm pretty wet,' says the girl, serene, ^I'm 
so messy I won't come in. I'll just stop out here \ 

on the steps. Don't hurry.' 

"^Wait a minute,' Mis' Emmons says. ^Stay 
where you are then, please, Robin, and meet 
these people.' 

"The girl threw the door wide, and she 
stepped back into the vestibule, where her um- 
brella had been trailing little puddles ; and she 
stood there against the big, black background of 
the night and the village, while Mis' Emmons 
presented her. 

"^This is my niece, Miss Sidney,' she told us. 
* She has just come to me to-day — for as long as 
I can keep her. Will you all come to see her ? ' 

"It wasn't much the way Mis' Sykes had 
done, singing praises of Miss Beryl Sessions for 
weeks on end before she'd got there; nor the 
way I was doing, wondering secret about my 
unknown niece, and what she'd be like. Mis' 
Emmons introduced her niece like she'd always 
been one of us. She said our names over, and 
we went towards her; and Miss Sidney leaned 
a little inside the frame of the doorway and put 



MOTHERS TO MEN 27 

out her hand to us all, a hand that didn^t have 
any glove on and that in spite of the rain, was 
warm. 

"^Fm so sorry/ she says, ^Fm afraid Fm dis- 
gracing Aunt Eleanor. But I couldn't help it. 
I love to walk in the rain.' 

"^That's what rain is for,' Insley says to her; 
and I see the two change smiles before Mis' 
Hubbelthwait's ^Well, I do hope you've got 
some good high rubbers on your feet' made the 
girl grave again — a sweet grave, not a stiff 
grave. You can be grave both ways, and they're 
as different from each other as soup from hot 
water. 

"^I have, thank you,' she says, ^big storm 
boots. Did you know,' she adds, *that somebody 
else is waiting out here ? Somebody^s little bit 
of a beau ? And Fm afraid he's gone to sleep.' 

"We looked at one another, wondering. Who 
was waiting for any of us ? ^ Not me,' one after 
another says, positive. * We've all raced home 
alone from this church since we was bom,' Mis' 
Uppers adds, true enough. 

"We was curious, with that curiosity that 
it's kind of fun to have, and we all crowded for- 
ward into the entry. And a little to one side 
of the shining lamp path was setting a child — 
a little boy, with a paper bag in his arms. 



II 

"Who on earth was he, we wondered to our- 
selves, and we all jostled forward, trying to 
see down to him, us women lifting up our skirts 
from the entry wet. He was like a little wad 
of clothes, bunched up on the top step, but in- 
side them the little fellow was all curled up, 
sleeping. And we knew he hadn't come for 
any of us, and he didn't look like he was waiting 
for anybody in particular. 

" Silas fixed up an explanation, ready-done : — 

"^Me must belong down on the flats,' says 
Silas. *The idear of his sleepin' here. I said 
we'd oughter hev a gate acrost the vestibule.' 

"^ Roust him up an' start him home,' says 
Timothy Toplady, adviceful. 

"^I will,' says Silas, that always thinks it's 
his share to do any unclaimed managing; and 
he brought down his hand towards the child's 
shoulder. But his hand didn't get that far. 

"*Let me wake him up,' says Robin Sidney. 

"She laid her umbrella in the wet of the steps 
and, Silas being surprised into giving way, she 
stooped over the child. She woke him up 

38 



MOTHERS TO MEN 29 

neither by speaking to him nor grasping his 
arm, but she just slipped her hands along his 
cheeks till her hands met under his chin, and 
she lifted up his chin, gentle. 

" * Wake up and look at me,' she says. 

"The child opened his eyes, with no starting 
or bewildering, and looked straight up into her 
face. There was light enough for us all to see 
that he smiled bright, like one that's real glad 
some waiting is done. And she spoke to him, 
not making a point of it and bringing it out like 
she'd aimed it at him, but just matter-of-fact 
gentle and commonplace tender. 

Whose little boy are you ?' she ask' him. 
^I'm goin' with whoever wants me to go 
with 'em,' says the child. 

^ But who are you — where do you live ? ' 
she says to him. ^ You live, don't you — in this 
town ? ' 

"The child shook his head positive. 

" ^ I lived far,' he told her, * in that other place. 
I come up here with my daddy. He says he 
might not come back to-night.' 

"Robin Sidney knelt right down before him 
on the wet steps. 

"^Truly,' she said, * haven't you any place to 
go to-night ?' 

"*0h, yes,' says the child, ^he says I must 



i6i 

it! 



30 MOTHERS TO MEN 

go with whoever wants me to go with ^em. Do 
— do you ?' 

"At that Miss Sidney looked up at us, swift, 
and down again. The wind had took hold of 
a strand of her hair and blew it across her eyes, 
and she was pushing it away as she got up. 
And by then Insley was standing before her, 
back of the little boy, that he suddenly stooped 
down and picked up in his arms. 

"^ Let's get inside, shall we?' he says, com- 
manding. ^ Let's all go back in and see about 
him.' 

"We went back into the church, even Silas 
taking orders, though of course that was part 
curiosity; and Insley sat down with the child 
on his knee, and held out the child's feet in his 
hand. 

"^He's wet ^s a rat,' he says. ^Look at his 
shoes.' 

"^Well-a, make him tell his name, why don't 
you ?' says Mis' Sykes, sharp. ^I think we'd 
ought to find out who he is. What's your name, 
Boy ? ' she adds, brisk. 

"Insley dropped the boy's feet and took ahold 
of one of his hands. ^Yes,' he says, hasty, *we 
must try to do that.' But he looked right 
straight over Mis' Sykes's shoulder to where, 
beyond the others, Robin Sidney was standing. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 31 

* He was your friend first,' he said to her. * You 
found him.' 

"She come and knelt down beside the child 
where, on Insley's knee, he sat staring round, 
all wondering and questioning, to the rest of 
us. But she seemed to forget all about the 
rest of us, and I loved the way she was with 
that little strange boy. She kind of put her 
hands on him, wiping the raindrops off his 
face, unbuttoning his wet coat, doing a little 
something to his collar; and every touch was 
a kind of a little stroke that some women's 
hands give almost without their knowing it. 
I loved to watch her, because I'm always as 
stiff as a board with a child — unless I'm alone 
with them. Then I ain't. 

"^My name's Robin,' she says to the little 
fellow. ^What's yours, dear?' 

"^Christopher,' he says right off. 'First, 
Christopher. An' then John. An' then Bart- 
lett. Have you only got one name ? ' he asked 
her. 

"^Yes, I've got two,' she says. ^The rest 
of mine is Sidney. Where — ' 

"^Only two?' says the child. 'Why, I've 
got three.' 

"'Only two,' she answers. 'Where did your 
father go — don't you know that, Christopher ?* 



32 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"That seemed to make him think of some- 
thing, and he looked down at his paper bag. 

"* First he bringed me these,' he says, and 
his face lighted up and he held out his bag to 
her. ^You can have. one my cream-puffs,' he 
offers her, magnificent. I held my breath for 
fear she wouldn't take it, but she did. *What 
fat ones !' she says admiring, and held it in 
her hand while she asked him more. It was 
real strange how we stood around, us older 
women and all, waiting for her to see what she 
could get out of him. But there wasn't any 
use. He was to go with whoever asked him 
to go — that was all he knew. 

"Silas Sykes snaps his watch. *It's gettin' 
late,' he gives out, with a backward look at 
nothing in particular. * Hadn't we best just 
leave him at the police station ? Threat 
Hubbelthwait and me go right past there.' 

"Mis' Toplady, she sweeps round on him, 
pulling her shawl over her shoulders — one of 
them gestures of some women that makes it 
seem like even them that works hard and don't 
get out much of anywhere has motions left in 
them that used to be motioned in courts and 
castles and like that. * Police station ! Silas 
Sykes,' says she, queenly, *you put me in mind 
of a stone wall, you're that sympathizin'.' 



MOTHERS TO 

"'Well, we can't take hit 
othy Toplady reminds her, 
too far. Twouldn't do to wa 
Timothy will give, but he w 
own selected poor that he 
he won't never allow hims 
givin' here an' there, whe 
happens to come up. 

"'Land, he may of come : 
disease — you can't tell,' ' s 
' I think we'd ought to go sic 

"'Yes,' says two-three ott 
slow. Why, his father may \ 

"Mis' Eleanor Emmons sp 

"'While we're going slow,' 
I'll just take him home ant 
I live the nearest. Mr. Syke 
him at the police station as 
someone is looking-for him 
inquires, he can sleep on mi 
grate fire to-night. Can't he 

"'I'd love it,' says the gjri 

"'Excellent,' says Insley, 
boy on his feet. ■ 

"But when he done that, 
swung round and caught T 
and looked up in her face ; 
was screwed up alarming. 



34 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"*What is it — what's the matter, Chris- 
topher ?* she ask' him. And the rest of us that 
had begun moving to go, stopped to listen. And 
in that little stillness Christopher told us : — 

"^Oh,' he says, *it's that hole near my big- 
gest toe. My biggest toe went right through 
that hole. And it's chokin^ me.' 

"Just exactly as if a hand had kind of touched 
us all, a nice little stir went round among us 
women. And with that, Insley, who had been 
standing there so big and strong and able and 
willing, and waiting for a chance to take hold, 
he just simply put his hands on his knees and 
stooped over and made his back right for the 
little fellow to climb up on. The child knew 
what it was for, soon enough — we see some- 
body somewheres must of been doing it for him 
before, for he scrambled right up, laughing, and 
Miss Sidney helping him. And a kind of a 
little ripple, that wan't no true words, run 
round among us all. Most women and some 
men is strong on ripples of this sort, but when 
it comes right down to doing something in 
consequence, we ain't so handy. 

*** Leave me come along and help take care 
of him a little while,' I says ; and I thought it 
was because I was ashamed of myself and try- 
ing to make up for not oflFering before. But 



MOTHERS TO MEN 35 

I think really what was the matter with me was 
that I just plain wanted to go along with that 
little boy. 

"^Fm your automobile/ says Insley to the 
little fellow, and he laughed out, delighted, 
hanging on^io his paper sack. 

"*If you'll give me the big umbrella, Aunt 
Eleanor,' says Miss Sidney on the church steps, 
TU try to keep the rain off the automobile 
and the passenger.' 

^^The rain had just about stopped when we 
four started down Daphne Street. The elms 
and maples along the sidewalk was dripping 
soft, and everybody's gardens was laying still, 
like something new had happened to them. It 
smelled good, and like everything outdoors 
was going to start all over again and be some- 
thing else, sweeter. 

"When we got most to Mis' Emmon's gate, 
I stopped stock still, looking at something shin- 
ing on the hill. It was Proudfit House, lit 
up from top to bottom — the big house on the 
hill that had stood there, blind and dark, for 
months on end. 

"*Why, some of the Proudfits must of come 
home,' I says out loud. 

"Mis' Emmons answered up, all unexpected 
to me, for I never knew she knew the Proudfits. 



36 MOTHERS TO MEN 

'Mr. Alex Proudfit is coming on to-morrow/ 
she says. And I sort of resented her that was 
so near a stranger in the village hearing this 
about Alex Proudfit before I did, that had 
known him since he was in knickerbockers. 

"'Am I keeping the rain off you two people ?' 
Miss Sidney asks as, at the corner, we all turned 
our backs on Proudfit House. 

"'Nobody,' Insley says — and his voice was 
always as smooth and round as wheels running 
along under his words, 'nobody ever kept the 
rain off as you are keeping it off, Miss Sidney.' 

"And, 'I did walked all that way — in that 
rain,' says Christopher, sleepy, in his automo- 
bile's collar. 



Ill 



"If it was anyways damp or chilly, Mis' 
Emmons always had a little blaze in the grate 
— not a heat blaze, but just a Come-here blaze. 
And going into her little what-she-called living- 
room at night, I always thought was like push- 
ing open some door of the dark to find a sort 
of cubby-corner hollowed out from the bigger 
dark for tending the homey fire. That rainy 
night we went in from the street almost right 
onto the hearth. And it was as pleasant as 
taking the first mouthful of something. 

"Insley, with Christopher still on his back, 
stood on the rug in front of the door and looked 
round him. 

"^How jolly it always looks here, Mrs. 
Emmons,' he says. *I never saw such a hearty 
place.' 

"I donno whether you've ever noticed the 
diff'erence; in the way women bustle around ? 
Most nice women do bustle when something 
comes up that needs it. Some does it light 
and lifty, like fairies going around on missions ; 
and some does it kind of crackling and nervous, 
like goblins on business. Mis' Emmons was the 

37 



38 MOTHERS TO MEN 

first kind, and it was real contagious. You 
caught it yourself and begun pulling chairs 
around and seeing to windows and sort of set- 
tling away down deep into the minute. She 
begun doing that way now, seeing to the fire 
and the lamp-shade and the sofa, and wanting 
everybody to be dry and comfortable, instant. 

"*You are so good-natured to like my room,' 
she says. * I furnished it for ten cents — yes, 
not much more. The whole effect is just colour,' 
she says. *What I have to do without in 
quality I go and wheedle out of the spectrum. 
What should we do without the rainbow ^. And 
what in the world am I going to put on that 
child .? ' 

"Insley let Christopher down on the rug by 
the door, and there he stood, dripping, patient, 
holding his paper bag, and not looking up and 
around him, same as a child will in a strange 
room, but just looking hard at the nice, red, 
warm blaze. Miss Sidney come and stooped 
over him, with that same little way of touching 
him, like loving. 

"^ Let's go and be dry now,' she says, *and 
then let's see what we can find in the pantry.' 

*'The little fellow, he just laughed out, soft 
and delicious, with his head turned away and 
without saying anything. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 39 

"^I never said such a successful thing/ says 
Miss Sidney, and led him upstairs where we 
could hear Mis' Emmons bustling around 
cosey. 

"Mr. Insley and I sat down by the fire. I 
remember I looked over towards him and felt 
sort of nervous, he was so good looking and 
so silent. A good-looking talking man I ain't 
afraid of, because I can either admire or de- 
spise him immediate, and either way it gives 
me something to do answering back. But one 
that's still, it takes longer to make out, and it 
don't give you no occupation for your impres- 
sions. And Insley, besides being still, was so 
good looking that it surprised me every new 
time I see him. I always wanted to say : Have 
you been looking like that all the time since I 
last saw you, and how do you keep it up ? 

"He had a face and a body that showed a 
good many men looking out of 'em at you, and 
all of 'em was men you'd like to of known. 
There was scholars that understood a lot, and 
gentlemen that acted easy, and outdoor men that 
had pioneered through hard things and had took 
their joy of the open. All of them had worked 
hard at him — and had give him his strength 
and his merriness and his big, broad shoulders 
and his nice, friendly boyishness, and his eyes 






40 MOTHERS TO MEN 

that could see considerably more than was set 
before them. By his own care he had knit his 
body close to life, and I know he had knit his 
spirit close to it, too. As I looked over at him 
that night, my being nervous sort of swelled up 
into a lump in my throat and I wanted to say 
inside me : O God, ain't it nice, ain't it nice 
that you've got some folks like him ? 

He glanced over to me, kind of whimsical. 
*Are you in favour of folks or tombstones ?' 
he asks, with his eyebrows flickering up. 

"'Me?' I says. 'Well, I don't want to be 
clannish, but I do lean a good deal towards 
folks.' 

"'You knew what I meant to-night?' he 
says. 

"'Yes,' I answered, 'I knew.' 

"'I thought you did,' he says grave. 

"Then he lapsed into keeping still again and 
so did I, me through not quite knowing what to 
say, and him — well, I wasn't sure, but I 
thought he acted a good deal as if he had some- 
thing nice to think about. I've seen that look 
on people's faces sometimes, and it always 
makes me feel a little surer that I'm a human 
being. I wondered if it was his new work 
he was turning over, or his liking the child's 
being cared for, or the mere nice mintite, there 



* 

r 

I 



MOTHERS TO MEN 41 

by the grate fire. Then a door upstairs shut, 
and somebody come down and into the room, 
and when he got up, his look sort of centred in 
that new minute. 

"It was Miss Sidney that come in, and she 
set down by the fire like something pleased her. 

"^Aunt Eleanor is going to decorate Chris- 
topher herself,' she says. * She believes that she 
alone can do whatever comes up in this life 
to be done, and usually she's right/ 

"Insley stood looking at her for a minute 
before he set down again. She had her big 
black cloak off by then, and she was wearing 
a dress-for-in-the-house that was all rosy. She 
wasn't anything of the star any longer. She 
was something more than a star. I always 
think one of the nicest commonplace minutes 
in a woman's everyday is when she comes back 
from somewheres outside the house where she's 
been, and sets down by the fire, or by a window, 
or just plain in the middle of the room. They 
always talk about pigeons ^homing'; I wish't 
they k'ept that word for women. It seems like 
it's so exactly what they do do. 

"^I love the people,' Miss Sidney went on, 
* that always feel that way — that if something 
they're interested in is going to be really well 
done, then they must do it themselves.' 



42 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"Insley always knew just what anybody 
meant — Fd noticed that about him. His 
mind never left what you'd said floating round, 
loose ends in the room, without your knowing 
whether it was going to be caught and tied ; but 
he just nipped right onto your remark and tied 
it in the right place. 

" * I love them, too,' he says now. ^ I love any- 
body who can really feel responsibility, from 
a collie with her pups up. But then Fm noth- 
ing to go by. I find Fm rather strong for a 
good many people that can't feel it, too — that 
are just folks, going along.' 

"I suppose he expected from her the nice, 
ladylike agreeing, same as most women give 
to this sort of thing, just like they'd admit 
they're fond of verbenas or thin soles. But 
instead of that, she caught fire. Her look 
jumped up the way a look will and went acrost 
to his. I always think Fd rather have folks 
say ^I know' to mc, understanding, than to 
just pour me out information, and that was 
what she said to him. 

"^I know,' she says, *on the train to-day — 
if you could have seen them. Such dreadful- 
looking people, and underneath — the giving- 
up-ness. I believe in them,' she added simple. 

"When a thing you believe gets spoke by 



MOTHERS TO MEN 43 

somebody that believes it, too, it's like the earth 
moved round a little faster, and I donno but 
it does. Insley looked for a minute like he 
thought so. 

"*I believe in them,' he says ; *not the way I 
used to, and just because I thought they must 
be, somehow, fundamentally decent, but be- 
cause it's true.' 

"*I know just when I first knew that,' Miss 
Sidney says. *It come to me, of all places, in a 
subway train, when I was looking at a row of 
faces across the car. Nobody, nobody can look 
interesting in that row along the side of a 
subway car. And then I saw. . . .' 

"She thought for a minute and shook her 
head. 

"^I can't tell you,' she says, *it sounds so 
little and — no account. It was a little thing, 
just something that happened to a homely 
woman with a homely man, in a hat like a 
pirate's. But it almost — let me in. I can 
do it ever since — look into people, into, or 
through, or with . . / she tries to explain it. 
Then her eyes hurried up to his face, like she 
was afraid he might not be understanding. He 
just nodded, without looking at her, but she 
knew that he knew what she meant, and that 
he meant it^ too. 



44 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"... I thought it was wonderful to hear 
them. I felt like an old mountain, or anything 
natural and real ancient, listening to the Song 
of Believing, sung by two that's young and just 
beginning. We all sing it sometime in our 
lives — or Lord grieve for them that never do 
— and I might as well own up that I catch 
myself humming that same song a good deal of 
the time, to keep myself a-going. But I love 
to hear it when it's just begun. 

"They was still talking when Mis' Emmons 
come downstairs with Christopher. Land, 
land but the little chap looked dear, dragging 
along, holding up a long-skirted lounging dress 
of Mis' Emmons's. I never had one of them 
lounging dresses. There's a lot of common 
things that it never seems to me I can buy for 
myself : a nice dressing-gown, a block of black 
pins, a . fancy-headed hat pin, and a lemon- 
squeezer. I always use a loose print, and com- 
mon pins, and penny black-headed hat pins, 
and go around squeezing my lemons by hand. 
I donno why it is, I'm sure. 

"^'m — I'm — I'm — a little boy king!' 
Christopher stutters, all excited and satisfied, 
while Insley was a-packing him in the Morris 
chair. 

"'Rained on!' says Mis' Emmons, in that 



MOTHERS TO MEN 45 

kind of dismay that's as pure feminine as if 
it had on skirts. ^ Water isn't a circumstance to 
what that dear child was. He was saturated 
— bless him. He must have been out for per- 
fect hours.' 

"Christopher, thinking back into the rain, 
mebbe, from the pleasantness of that minute, 
smiled and took a long breath. 

" * I walked from that other place,' he explains, 
important. 

"Mis' Emmons knew he was hungry, and she 
took Miss Sidney and Insley off to the kitchen 
to find something to eat, and left me with the 
little fellow, me spreading out his clothes in 
front of the fire to dry. He set real still, like 
being dry and being with somebody was all 
he wanted. And of course that is a good deal. 

"I don't always quite know how to start 
talking to a child. I'm always crazy to talk 
with them, but I'm so afraid of that shy, grave, 
criticizin' look they have. I feel right off like 
apologizing for the silly question I've just asked 
them. I felt that way now when Christopher 
looked at me, real dignified and wondering. 
'What you going to be when you grow up to 
be a man V was what I had just asked him. 
And yet I don't know what better question I 
could of asked him, either. 



46 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"^Fm goin^ to have a cream-puif store, an' 
make it all light in the window/ he answers ready. 

"*A11 light in the window ?' I says puzzled. 

"*And Vm going to keep a church/ he goes on, 
* and Fm going to make nice, black velvet for 
their coffings.' 

"I didn't know quite what to make of that, 
not being able to think back very far into his 
mind. So I kept still a few minutes. 

"'What was you doin' in the church?' he 
says to me, all at once. 

"'I don't really know. Waiting for you to 
come, I guess, Christopher,' I says. 

^'^Was you?' he cried, delighted. 'Pretty 
soon I came ! ' He looked in the fire, sort of 
troubled. 'Is God outdoors nights ?' he says. 

" I said a little something. 

"'Well,' he says, 'I thought he was in the 
house by the bed when you say your prayer. 
An' I thought he was in church. But I don't 
think he stays in the dark, much.' 

'"Mebbe you don't,' I says, 'but you wait 
for him in the dark, and mebbe all of a sudden 
some night you can tell that something is there. 
And just you wait for that night to come.' 

'"That's a nice game,' says Christopher, 
bright. 'What game is that ?' 

'I donno,' I says. 'Game of Life, I guess.' 



C( 



MOTHERS TO MEN 47 

"He liked the sound; and he set there — 
little waif, full of no supper, saying it over like 
a chant : — 

"^Game o' life — game o' life — game o' 

"Just at that minute I was turning his little 
pockets wrong side out to dry them, and in one 
of them I see a piece of paper, all crumpled up 
and wrinkled. I spread it out, and I see it had 
writing on. And I held it up to the light and 
read it, read it through twice. 

"* Christopher,' I says then, ^ where did you 
get this piece of paper ? It was in your pocket.' 

"He looked at it, blank, and then he remem- 
bered. 

" ' My daddy,' he says. ' My daddy told me to 
give it to folks. I forgot.' 

"^To folks ?' I says. ^To what folks ?' 

"*To whoever ask' me anything,' he answers. 
* Is it a letter ?' he ask'. 

"^Yes,' I says, thoughtful, *it's a letter.' 

"^To tell me what to do ?' he ask' me. 

"*Yes,' I says, ^but more, I guess, to tell us 
what to do.' 

"I talked with him a little longer, so's to get 
his mind off the paper ; and then I told him to 
set still a minute, and I slipped out to where the 
rest was. 



48 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"The pantry had a close, spicey, fcx)dy smell 
of a pantry at night, when every tin chest and 
glass jar may be full up with nice things to eat 
that you'd forgot about — cocoanut and citron 
and cinnamon bark. In grown-up folks one of 
the things that is the last to grow up is the 
things a pantry in the evening promises. You 
may get over really liking raisins and sweet 
chocolate ; you may get to wanting to eat in the 
evening things that you didn't use' to even know 
the names of and don't know them now, and 
yet it never gets over being nice and eventive 
to go out in somebody's pantry at night, espe- 
cially a pantry that ain't your own. 

"*Put everything on a tray,' Mis' Emmons 
was directing them, *and find the chafing-dish 
and let's make it in there by Christopher. Mr. 
Insley, can you make toast ? Don't equivocate,' 
she says; ^can you make toast? People fib 
no end over what they can make. I'm always 
bragging about my omelettes, and yet one out 
of every three I make goes flat, and I know it. 
And yet I brag on. Beans, buckwheat, rice — 
what do you want to cream, Robin ? Well, 
look in the store-room. There may be some- 
thing there. We must tell Miss Sidney about 
Grandma Sellers' store-room, Mr. Insley,' she 
says, and then tells it herself, laughing like a girl, 



MOTHERS TO MEN 49 

how Grandma Sellers, down at the other end 
of Daphne Street, has got a store-room she keeps 
full of staples and won't let her son's wife use a 
thing out. ^ Fve been hungry,' Grandma Sellers 
says, *and I ain't ashamed of that. But if you 
knew how good it feels to have a still-room 
stocked full, you wouldn't ask me to disturb a 
can of nothing. I want them all there, so if I 
should want them.' 'She's like me,' Mis' 
Emmons ends, ' I always want to keep my living- 
room table tidy, to have a place in case I should 
want to lay anything down. And if I put any- 
thing on it, I snatch it up, so as to have a place 
in case I want to lay anything down.' 

"They was all laughing when I went out into 
the kitchen, and I went up to Mis' Emmons with 
the paper. 

Read that,' I says. 

She done so, out loud — the scrawlin', down- 
hill message : — 

"'Keep him will you,' the paper said, 'I don't 
chuck him to get rid of but hes only got me since 
my wifes dead and the drinks got me again. Ive 
stood it quite awhile but its got me again so 
keep him and oblidge. will send money to him 
to the P O here what I can spare I aint chuckin 
him but the drinks got me again. 

"'resp, his father. 



id 



so MOTHERS TO MEN 

" ^ P S his name is Christopher Bartlett he is 
a good boy his throat gets sore awful easy.' 

"When Mis' Emmons had got through read- 
ing, I remember Miss Sidney's face best. It 
was so full of a sort of a leaping-up pity and 
wistfulness that it went to your heart, like words. 
I knew that with her the minute wasn't no mere 
thrill nor twitter nor pucker, the way sad things 
is to some, but it was just a straight sounding of 
a voice from a place of pain. And so it was to 
Insley. But Mis' Emmons, she never give her- 
self time to be swamped by anything without try- 
ing to climb out right while the swamping was 
going on. 

"^What'U we do ?' she says, rapid. ^What in 
this world shall we do ? Did you ever hear of 
anything — well, I wish somebody would tell me 
what we're going to do. ' 

"^ Let's be glad for one thing,' says Allen 
Insley, *that he's here with you people to-night. 
Let's be glad of that first — that he's here with 
you.' 

"Miss Sidney looked away to the dark window. 

"^That poor man,' she says. 'That poor 
father. . . .' 

"We talked about it a little, kind of loose 
ends and nothing to fasten to, like you will. Mis' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 51 

Emmons was the first to get back inside the 
minute. 

"*Well/ she says, brisk, Mo let's go in and 
feed the child while we have him. Nobody 
knows when he's had anything to eat but those 
unholy cream-puffs. Let's heat him some broth 
and let's carry in the things.' 

"Back by the fire Christopher set doing noth- 
ing, but just looking in the blaze like his very 
eyesight had been chilly and damp and needed 
seeing to. He cried out jolly when he see all 
the pretty harness of the chafing-dish and the 
tray full of promises. 

"'Oh,' he cries, ' Robin T 

"She went over to him, and she nestled him 
now like she couldn't think of enough to do for 
him nor enough things to say to keep him com- 
pany. I see Insley watching her, and I won- 
dered if it didn't come to him like it come to me, 
that for the pure art of doing nothing so that it 
seems like it couldn't be got along without, a 
woman — some women — can be commended 
by heaven to a world that always needs that kind 
of doing nothing. 

" * Children have a genius for getting rid of the 
things that don't count,' Miss Sidney says. 'I 
love his calling me "Robin." Mustn't there be 
some place where we don't build walls around 
our names ?' 



52^ MOTHERS TO MEN 

"Insley thought for a minute. *You oughtn't 
to be called " Miss,'' and you oughtn't to wear a 
hat,' he concluded, sober. ^Both of them make 
you — too much there. They draw a line around 
you.' 

"^I don't feel like Miss to myself,' she says, 
grave. * I feel like Robin. I believe I am Robin ! ' 

"And I made up my mind right then and 
there that, to myself anyway, I was always going 
to call her Robin. It's funny about first names. 
Some of them fit right down and snuggle up close 
to their person so that you can't think of them 
apart. And some of them slip loose and dangle 
along after their person, quite a ways back, 
so that you're always surprised when now and 
then they catch up and get themselves spoke by 
someone. But the name Robin just seemed to 
wrap Miss Sidney up in itself so that, as she said, 
she was Robin. I like to call her so. 

"It was her that engineered the chafing-dish. 
A chafing-dish is a thing I've always looked on a 
little askant. I couldn't cook with folks looking 
at me no more than I could wash my facexin 
company. I remember one hot July day when 
there was a breeze in my front door, I took my 
ironing-board in the parlor and tried to iron 
there. But land, I felt all left-handed; and I 
know it would be that way if I ever tried to 



MOTHERS TO MEN ^ 53 

cook in there, on my good rug. Robin though, 
she done it wonderful. And pretty soon she 
put the hot cream gravy on some crumbled-up 
bread and took it to Christopher, with a cup of 
broth that smelled like when they used to say, 
* Dinner's ready,' when you was twelve years 
old. 

"He looked up at her eager. *Can you cut 
it in squares ?' he asked. 

" * In what ? ' she asks him over. 

"* Squares. And play it's molasses candy — 
white molasses candy ?' he says. 

"*0h,' says Robin, *no, not in squares. But 
let's play it's hot ice-cream.' 

'''Hot ice-cream j"^ he says, real slow, his eyes 
getting wide. To play Little Boy King and have 
hot ice-cream was about as much as he could take 
care of, in joy. Sometimes I get to wondering 
how we ever do anything else except collect chil- 
dren together and give them nice little simple 
fairylands. But while, on the sly, we was all 
watching to see Christopher sink deep in the de- 
light of that hot toothsome supper, he suddenly 
lays down his spoon and stares over to us with 
wide eyes, eyes that there wasn't no tears gather- 
ing in, though his little mouth was quivering. 

"^What is it — what, dear ?' Robin asks, from 
her stool near his feet. 



"I 
1 



54 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"^My daddy,' says the little boy. *I was 
thinking if he could have some this.' 

"Robin touched her cheek down on his arm. 

"* Blessed,' she says, * think how glad he'd be 
.to have you have some. He'd want you to eat 
it — wouldn't he ? ' 

"The child nodded and took up his spoon, 
but he sighed some. *I wish't he'd hurry,' he 
says, and ate, obedient. 

"Robin looked up at us — I don't think a 
woman is ever so lovely as when she's sympa- 
thizing, and it don't make much difference what 
it's over, a sore finger or a sore heart, it's equally 
becoming. 

"^I know,' she says to us, *I know just the 
place where that hurts. I remember, when I 
was little, being in a house that a band passed, 
and because mother wasn't there, I ran inside 
and wouldn't listen. It's such a special kind of 
hurt. • . .' 

"From the end of the settle that was some 
in the shadow, Insley set watching her, and he 
looked as if he was thinking just what I was 
thinking: that she was the kind that would 
most always know just the place things hurt. 
And I bet she'd know what to do — and a thou- 
sand kinds of things that she'd go and do it. 

"'O . . . ' Christopher says. *I like this 



MOTHERS TO MEN 55 

most next better than molasses candy, cutted in 
squares. I do, Robin!' He looked down at 
her, his spoon waiting. ^Is you that Robin 
Redbreast ? ' he inquired. 

" ' Fm any Robin you want me to be,' she told 
him. 'To-morrow we'll play that, shall we ?' 

"'Am I here to-morrow? Don't I have to 
walk to-morrow ? ' he ask' her. 

" ' No, you won't have to walk to-morrow,' 
she told him. 

"Christopher leaned back, altogether nearer 
to luxury than I guess he'd ever been. 

"'I'm a little boy king, and it's hot ice-cream, 
and I love you^ he tops it off to Robin. 

"She smiled at him, leaning on his chair. 

"'Isn't it a miracle,' she says to us, 'the way 
we can call out — being liked ? We don't do 
something, and people don't pay any attention 
and don't know the difference. Then some 
little thing happens, and there they are — liking 
us, doing a real thing. ' 

"'I know it,' I says, fervent. 'Sometimes,' I 
says, 'it seems to me wonderful cosey to be alive ! 
I'm glad I'm it.' 

"'So am I,' says Insley, and leaned forward. 
* There's never been such a time to be alive,' he 
says. ^Mrs. Emmons, why don't we ask Miss 
Sidney for some plans for our plan V 



$6 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"Do you know how sometimes you'll have a 
number of floating ideas in your mind — want- 
ing to do this, thinking that would be nice, 
dreaming of something else — - and yet afraid to 
say much about it, because it seems like the 
ideas or the dreams is much too wild for anybody 
else to have, too ? And then mebbe after a 
while, you'll find that somebody had the same 
idea and dreamed it out, and died with it ? Or 
somebody else tried to make it go a little ? Well, 
that was what begun to happen to me that night 
while I heard Insley talk, only I see that my 
floating ideas, that wan't properly attached to 
the sides of my head, was actually being worked 
out here and there, and that Insley knew about 
them. 

"I donno how to tell what my ideas was. I'd 
had them from time to time, and a good many 
of us ladies had, only we didn't know what to do 
with them. And an idea that you don't know 
what to do with is like a wild animal out of its 
cage : there ain't no performance till its ad- 
justed. For instance, when we'd wanted to pave 
Daphne Street and the whole town council had 
got up and swung its arms over its head and said 
that having an economical administration was 
better than paving — why, then us ladies had 
all had the same idee about that. 



I 



MOTHERS TO MEN 57 



Hi 



Is the town run for the sake of being the 
town, with money in its treasury, or is the town 
run for the folks in it ?' I remember Mis' Top- 
lady asking, puzzled. ^ Ain't the folks the town 
really ?' she ask'. *And if they are, why can't 
they pave themselves with their own money ? 
Don't that make sense ?' she ask' us, and we 
thought it did. 

"Us ladies had got Daphne Street paved, or 
at least it was through us they made the 
beginning, but there was things we hadn't 
done. We was all taking milk of Rob Henney 
that we knew his cow barns wasn't at all eat- 
able, but he was the only milk wagon, nobody 
else in town delivering, so we kept on taking, but 
squeamish, squeamish. Then there was the 
grocery stores, leaving their food all over the 
sidewalk, dust-peppered and dirt-salted. But 
nobody liked to say anything to Silas Sykes that 
keeps the post-office store, nor to Joe Betts, 
that his father before him kept the meat market, 
being we all felt delicate, like at asking a church 
member to come out to church. Then us ladies 
had bought a zinc wagon and started it around to 
pick up the garbage to folks' doors, but the 
second summer the council wouldn't help pay 
for the team, because it was a saving council, and 
so the wagon was setting in a shed, with its hands 



58 MOTHERS TO MEN 

folded. Then there was Black Hollow, that 
we'd wanted filled up with dirt instead of 
scummy water, arranging for typhoid fever and 
other things, but the council having got started 
paving, was engaged in paving the swamp out 
for miles, Silas Sykes's cousin being in the 
wooden block business. And, too, us ladies 
was just then hopping mad over the doings they 
was planning for the Fourth of July, that wasn't 
no more than making a cash register of the day 
to earn money into. All these things had been 
disturbing us, and more ; but though we talked 
it over considerable, none of us knew what to 
do, or whether anything could be. It seemed as 
though every way we moved a hand, it hit out 
at the council or else went into some business 
man's pocket. And not having anybody to tell 
us what other towns were doing, we just set still 
and wished, passive. 

"Well, and that night, while I heard Insley 
talking, was the first I knew that other towns 
had thought about these things, too, and was 
beginning to stir and to stir things. Insley 
talked about it light enough, laughing, taking it 
all casual on the outside, but underneath with a 
splendid earnestness that was like the warp to 
his words. He talked like we could pick Friend- 
ship Village up, same as a strand if we wanted^ 



MOTHERS TO MEN 59 

and make it fine and right for weaving in a big 
pattern that his eyes seemed to see. He talked 
like our village, and everybody's village and 
everybody's city wasn't just a lot of streets laid 
down and walls set up, and little families and 
little clubs and little separate groups of folks 
organized by themselves. But he spoke like 
the whole town was just one street and no walls, 
and like every town was a piece of the Big Fam- 
ily that lives on the same street, all around the 
world and back again. And he seemed to feel 
that the chief thing all of us was up to was 
thinking about this family and doing for it and 
being it, and getting it to be the way it can be 
when we all know how. And he seemed to think 
the things us ladies had wanted to do was some 
of the things that would help it to be the way 
it can. 

"When he stopped, Robin looked up at him 
from the hearth-rug : ^ " The world is begin- 
ning,'" she quotes to him from somewheres; 

I must go and help the king." ' 
He nodded, looking down at her and seeing, 
as he must have seen, that her face was all kin- 
dled into the same kind of a glory that was in 
his. It was a nice minute for them, but I was 
so excited I piped right up in the middle of it : — 
Oh,' I says, Uhem things ! Was it them 



it 



m 



iC c 

die 

Hi 



60 MOTHERS TO MEN 

kind of things you meant about in Sodality to- 
night that we'd ought to do ? Why, us ladies has 
wanted to do things lik6 that, but we felt sort of 
sneaking about it and like we was working 
against the council and putting our interests 
before the town treasury — ' 

"^And of the cemetery,' he says. 

"^Is thatj' I ask' him, ^what you're professor 
of, over to Indian Mound college ? ' 
'Something like that,' he says. 
Nothing in a book, with long words and 
italics ?' I ask' him. 

Well,' he says, 'it's getting in books now, a 
little. But it doesn't need any long words.' 

"'Why,' I says, 'it's just being professor of 
human beings, then ? ' 

'Trying to be, perhaps,' he says, grave. 
'Professor of Human Beings,' I said over to 
myself; 'professor of being human. . . .' 

"On this nice minute, the front door, without 
no bell or knock, opened to let in Mis' Holcomb- 
that-was-Mame-Bliss, with a shawl over her 
head and a tin can in her hand. 

"'No, I won't set any, thanks,' she says. 'I 
just got to thinking — mercy, no. Don't give 
me any kind of anything to eat any such time 
of night as this. I should be up till midnight 
taking soda. That's what ails folks' stomachs. 






MOTHERS TO MEN 6i 

my notion — these late lunches on nobody 
knows what. No, I got to bed and I was just 
dropping off when I happened to sense how 
wringing wet that child was, and that I betted 
he'd take cold and have the croup in the night, 
and you wouldn't have no remedy — not having 
any children, so. It rousted me right up wide 
awake, and I dressed me and run over here with 
this; Here. Put some on a rag and clap it on 
his chest if he coughs croupy. I donno's it 
would hurt him to clap it on him, anyway, so's 
to be sure. No, I can't stop. It's 'way past my 
bed-time. . . . 

"^There's lots of professors of being human, 
Miss Marsh,' Insley says to me, low. 

"Mis' Holcomb stood thinking a minute, 
brushing her lips with the fringe of her shawl. 

" ^Mebbe somebody up to the Proudfits' would 
do something for him,' she says. ^I see they're 
lit up. Who's coming V 

"*Mr. Alex Proudfit will be here to-morrow,' 
Mis' Emmons told her. ^He has some people 
coming to him in a day or two, for a house party 
over the Fourth.' 

" ^ Will he be here so soon ? ' says Insley. * I've 
been looking forward to meeting him — I've a 
letter to him from Indian Mound.' 

Whatever happens,' says Mis' Holcomb, 



etc 



6a MOTHERS TO MEN 

*ril get up attic first thing in the morning and 
find some old clothes for this dear child. I may 
be weak in the pocket-book, but Fm strong on 
old duds.' 

"Insley and I both said good night, so's to 
walk home with Mis' Holcomb, and Chris- 
topher kissed us both, simple as belonging to us. 

" * We had that hot ice-cream,' he announced to 
Mis' Holcomb. 

"*The lamb !' says she, and turns her back, 
hasty. 

"I wondered a little at Mis' Emmons not 
saying anything to her about the letter we'd 
found, that made us know somebody would have 
to do something. But just as we was starting 
out, Mis' Emmons says to me low, * Don't let's 
say anything about his father yet. I have a plan 
— I want to think it over first.' And I liked 
knowing that already she had a plan, and I betted 
it was a plan that would be bom four-square to 
its own future. 

Insley stood holding the door open. The 
rain had stopped altogether now, and the night 
was full of little things sticking their heads 
up in deep grasses and beginning to sing about 
it. I donno about what, but about something 
nice. And Insley was looking toward Robin, 
and I see that all the ancestors he'd ever had 



MOTHERS TO MEN 63 

was lingering around in his face, like they knew 
about something he was just beginning to know 
about. Something nice — nicer than the little 
outdoor voices. 

"*Good night, Miss Sidney,' he says. *And 
what a good night for Christopher ! ' And he 
looked as if he wanted to add : * And for me.' 

"'Good night. Mis' Emmons,' I says. 'It's 
been an evening like a full meal.' 



IV 

"By messenger the next day noon come a 
letter for me that made me laugh a little and 
that made me a little bit mad, too. This was 
it: — 

"^Dear Calliope: 

" * Come up and help straighten things out, 
do. This place breathes desolation. Every- 
thing is everywhere except everything which 
everyone wants, which is lost. Come at once. 
Calliope, pray, and dine with me to-night and 
give me as much time as you can for a fortnight, 
Fm having some people here next week — 
twenty or so for over the Fourth — and a party. 
A company, you know ! I need you. 

"^Alex Proudfit.' 

"It was so exactly like Alex to send for me 
just plain because he wanted me. Never a word 
about if I was able or if I wasn't putting up 
berries or didn't have company or wasn't dead. 
I hadn't heard a sound from him in the two 
years or more that he'd been gone, and yet now 
it was just ^Come,' like a lord. And for that 

64 



\ 



MOTHERS TO MEN 65 

matter like he used to do when he was in knicker- 
bockers and coming to my house for fresh 
cookies, whether I had any baked or not. But 
I remember actually baking a batch for him 
one day while he galloped his pony up and down 
the Plank Road waiting for them. And I done 
the same way now. I got my work out of the 
way and went right up there, like Fd always 
done for that family in the forty years I could 
think back to knowing them, when I was a girl. 
I guessed that Alex had lit down sudden, a day 
or so behind his telegram to the servants ; and I 
found that was what he had done. 

"Proudfit House stands on a hill, and it looks 
like the hill had billowed up gentle from under- 
neath and had let some of the house flow down 
the sides. It was built ambitious, of the good 
cream brick that gives to a lot of our Middle 
West towns their colour of natural flax in among 
the green ; it had been big in the beginning, and 
to it had been added a good many afterthoughts 
and postscripts of conservatory and entrance 
porch and sun room and screened veranda, till 
the hill couldn't hold them all. The house was 
one of them that was built fifty years ago and 
that has since been pecked and patted to suit 
modern uses, pinched off here and pulled off there 
to fit notions refining themselves gradual. And 



66 MOTHERS TO MEN 

all the time the house was let to keep some nice, 
ugly things that after a while, by mere age and 
use-to-ness, were finally accepted wholesale as 
dignified and desirable. The great brown man- 
sard roof, niched and glassed in two places for 
statues — and having them, too, inside my mem- 
ory and until Mr. Alex pulled them down ; the 
scalloped tower on a wing ; the round red glass 
window on a stairway — these we all sort of come 
to agree to as qualities of the place that couldn't 
be changed no more'n the railroad track. Tap- 
estries and water-colours and Persian carpets 
went on inside the house, but outside was all the 
little twists of a taste that had started in naked 
and was getting dressed up by degrees. 

"Since the marriage of her daughter Clemen- 
tina, Madame Proudfit had spent a good deal of 
time abroad, and the house had been shut up. 
This shutting up of people's houses always sur- 
prises me. When I shut up my house- to go 
away for a couple of months or so, I just make 
sure the kitchen fire is out, and I carry the bird 
down to Mis' Holcomb's, and I turn the key in 
the front door and start off. But land, land 
when Proudfit House is going to be shut, the 
servants work days on end. Rugs up, curtains 
down, furniture covered and setting around 
out of place, pictures and ornaments wrapped up 



MOTHERS TO MEN 67 

in blue paper — I always wonder why. Closing 
my house is like putting it to sleep for a little 
while, but closing Proudfit House is some like 
seeing it through a spasm and into a trance. 
They done that to the house most every summer, 
and I used to think they acted like spring was a 
sort of contagion, or a seventeen-year locust, or 
something to be fumigated for. I supposed that 
was the way the house looked when Alex got 
home to it, and of course a man must hate it worse 
than a woman does, because he doesn't know 
which end to tell them to take hold of to unravel. 
So I went right up there when he sent for me — 
and then it was a little fun, too, to be on the 
inside of what was happening there, that all the 
village was so curious about. 

"He'd gone off when I got there, gone off on 
horseback on some business, but he'd left word 
that he'd be back in a little while, and would 
I help him out in the library. I knew what 
that meant. The books was all out of the 
shelves and packed in paper, and he wanted 
me to see that they got back into their right 
places, like I'd done many and many a time for 
his mother. So I worked there the whole after- 
noon, with a couple of men to help me, and the 
portrait of Linda Proudfit on the wall watching 
me like it wanted to tell me something, maybe 



68 MOTHERS TO MEN 

about the way she went off and died, away from 
home; and a little after four o'clock a servant 
let somebody into the room. 

"I looked up expecting to see Alex, and it 
surprised me some to see Insley instead. But 
I guessed how it was : that Alex Proudfit being 
a logical one to talk over Friendship Village 
with, Insley couldn't lose a day in bringing him 
his letter. 

"*Well, Miss Marsh,' says he, 'and do you 
live everywhere, like a good fairy ? ' 

"I thought afterwards that I might have 
said to him: *No, Mr. Insley. And do you 
appear everywhere, like a god ?' But at the 
time I didn't think of anything to say, and I 
just smiled. I'm like that, — if I like anybody, 
I can't think of a thing to say back ; but to Silas 
Sykes I could talk back all day. 

"We'd got the room part in order by then, 
and Insley sat down and looked around him, 
enjoyable. It was a beautiful room. I always 
think that that library ain't no amateur at its 
regular business of being a vital part of the 
home. Some rooms are aw^ul amateurs at it, 
and some ain't no more than apprentices, and 
some are downright enemies to the house 
they're in. But that library I always like to 
look around. It $eenas to me, if I really knew 



MOTHERS TO MEN 69 

about such things, and how they ought to be, I 
couldn't like that room any better. Colour, 
proportion, window, shadow — they was all 
lined up in a kind of an enjoyable profession- 
alism of doing their best. The room was awake 
now, too — I had the windows open and Pd 
started the clock. Insley set looking around 
as if there was sighs inside him. I knew how, 
down in New England, his father's home sort 
of behaved itself like this home. But after 
college, he had had to choose his way, and he 
had faced about to the new west, the new world, 
where big ways of living seemed to him to be 
sweeping as a wind sweeps. He had chose as 
he had chose, and I suppose he was glad of that ; 
but I knew the room he had when he was in town, 
at Threat Hubbelthwait's hotel, must be a good 
deal like being homesick, and that this library 
was like coming home. 

"'Mr. Proudfit had just returned and would 
be down at once,' the man come back and told 
him. And while he waited Insley says to me : 

"^Have you seen anything of the little boy 
to-day. Miss Marsh ?' 

"I was dying to answer back: 'Yes, I see 
Miss Sidney early this morning,' but you can't 
answer back all you die to. So I told him yes, 
I'd seen all three of them and they was to be 



70 MOTHERS TO MEN 

up in the city all day to buy some things for 
Christopher. Mis* Emmons and Robin was 
both to come up to Proudfit House to Alex's 
house party — seems they'd met abroad some- 
wheres a year or more back; and they was 
going to bring Christopher, who Mis' Emmons 
didn't show any sign of giving up while her 
plan, whatever it was, was getting itself thought 
over. So they'd whisked the child off to the 
city that day to get him the things he needed. 
And there wasn't time to say anything more, 
for in come Alex Proudfit. 

• *^He was in his riding clothes — horseback 
dress we always call it in the village, which I 
s'pose isn't city talk, proper. He was long 
and thin and brown, and sort of slow-moving 
in his motions, but quick and nervous in his talk ; 
and I don't know what there was about him 
— his clothes, or his odd, old-country looking 
ring, or the high white thing wound twice 
around his neck, or his way of pronouncing his 
words — but he seemed a good deal like a pic- 
ture of a title or a noted man. The minute 
you looked at him, you turned proud of being 
with him, and you pretty near felt distinguished 
yourself, in a nice way, because you was in his 
company. Alex was like that. 

^^*I don't like having kept you waiting,' he 



V 



\ 
\ 

V 



MOTHERS TO MEN 71 

says to Insley, ^Fm just in. By Jove, IVe left 
Topping's letter somewhere — Insley, is it ? 
thank you. Of course. Well, Calliope, bless- 
ings ! I knew I could count on you. How are 
you — you look it. No, don't run away. Keep 
straight on — Mr. Insley will pardon us getting 
settled under his nose. Now what can I get 
you, Mr. Insley ? If you've walked up, you're 
warm. No ? As you will. It's mighty jolly 
getting back — for a minute, you know. I 
couldn't stop here. How the devil do you 
stop here all the time — or do you stop here 
all the timet ? . . .' All this he poured out in 
a breath. He always had talked fast, but now 
I see that he talked more than fast — he talked 
foreign. 

"'I'm here some of the time,' says Insley; 
*I hoped that you were going to be, too.' 

"'I ?' Alex said. *0h, no — no. I feel like 
this : while I'm in the world, I want it at its 
best. I want it at its latest moment. I want 
to be living now. Friendship Village — why, 
man, it's living half a century ago — anyway, 
a quarter. It doesn't know about a.d. nine- 
teen-anything. I love the town, you know, for 
what it is. But confound it, I'm living now.^ 

"Insley leaned forward. I was dusting away 
on an encyclopaedia, but I see his face and I 



72 MOTHERS TO MEN 

knew what it meant. This was just what heM 
been hoping for. Alex Proudfit was a man who 
understood that the village hadn't caught up. 
So he would want to help it — naturally he 
would. 

"^Fm amazed at the point of view/ Alex 
went on. *I never saw such self-sufficiency as 
the little towns have. In England, on the con- 
tinent, the villages know their place and keep 
it, look up to the towns and all that — play 
the peasant, as they are. Know their betters. 
Here ? Bless you. Not a man down town here 
but will tell you that the village has got every- 
thing that is admirable. They believe it, too. 
Electric light, water, main street paved, ceme- 
tery kept up, "nice residences," telephones, 
library open two nights a week, fresh lettuce 
all winter — fine, up-to-date little place ! And, 
Lord, but it's a back-water. With all its im- 
provements the whole idea of modern life some- 
how escapes it — music and art, drama, letters, 
manners, as integral parts of everyday living — 
what does it know of them ? It thinks these 
things are luxuries, outside the scheme of real 
life, like monoplanes. Jove, it's delicious ! ' 

**He leaned back, laughing. Insley must 
have felt his charm. Alex always was fasci- 
nating. His eyes were gray and sort of hob- 



MOTHERS TO MEN 73 

nobbed with your own; his square chin just 
kind of threatened a dimple without breaking 
into one; his dark hair done clusters like a 
statue ; and then there was a lot of just plain 
charm pouring oif him.. But of course more 
than with this, Insley was filled with his own 
hope : if Alex Proudfit understood some things 
about the village that ought to be made right, 
it looked to him as though they might do every- 
thing together^ 

"*Why,' Insley says, 'you don't know — 
you don't know how glad I am to hear you say 
this. It's exactly the thing my head has been 
full of ' 

"*0f course your head is full of it,' says Alex. 
'How can it help but be when you're fast here 
some of the time? If you don^t mind — what is 
it that keeps you here at all ? I don't think I 
read Topping's letter properly. . . .' 

"Insley looked out from all over his face. 

"'I stay,' he says, 'just because all this is 
so. It needs somebody to stay, don't you 
think?' 

"'Ah, yes, I see,' says Alex, rapid and foreign. 
'How do you mean, though ? Surely you don't 
mean renouncing — and that sort of thing ? ' 

"' Renouncing — no ! ' says Insley. 'Getting 
into the game.' 



74 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"He got his enthusiasm down into still places 
and outlined what he meant. It was all at 
the ends of his fingers — what there was to do 
if the town was to live up to itself, to find ways 
to express the everyday human fellowship that 
Insley see underneath everything. And Alex 
Proudfit listened, giving that nice, careful, paci- 
fying attention of his. He was always so polite 
that his listening was like answering. When 
Insley got through, Alex's very disagreeing with 
him was sympathizing. 

"*My dear man,* says he — I remember 
every word because it was something Vd won- 
dered sometimes too, only Fd done my wondering 
vague, like you do — * My dear man, but are 
you not, after all, anticipating? This is just the 
way Nature works — beating these things into 
the heads and hearts of generations. Aren't you 
trying to do it all at once ? ' 

"^Pm trying to help nature, to be a part 
of nature — exactly,' says Insley, *and to do 
it here in Friendship Village.' 

"*Why,' says Alex, * you'll be talking about 
facilitating God's plan next — helping him 
along, by Jove.' 

"Insley looks at him level. *I mean that 
now,' he says, *if you want to put it that 
way.' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 75 

"*Good Lord/ says Alex, 'but how do you 
know what — what he wants ?' 

" * Don't you ? ' says Insley, even. 

"Alex Proudfit turned and touched a bell. 
*Look here/ he says, *you stay afid dine, 
won't you ? I'm alone to-night — Calliope 
and I are. Stay. I always enjoy threshing this 
out.' 

"To the man-servant who just about breathed 
with a well-trained stoop of being deferential, 
his master give the order about the table. 
*And, Bay less, have them hunt out some of 
those tea-roses they had in bloom the other 
day — you should see them. Calliope. Oh, 
and, Bayless, hurry dinner a bit. I'm as hungry 
as lions,' he added to us, and he made me think 
of the little boy in knickerbockers, asking me 
for fresh cookies. 

"He slipped back to their topic, ranking it 
right in with tea-roses. In the hour before 
dinner they went on * threshing it out' there 
in that nice luxurious room, and through the 
dinner, too — a simple, perfect dinner where 
I didn't know which to eat, the plates or the 
food, they was both so complete. Up to Proud- 
fit House I can hardly ever make out whether 
I'm chewing flavours or colours or shapes, but 
I donno as I care. Flavours, thank my stars. 



76 MOTHERS TO MEN 

aren't the only things in life I know how to 
digest. 

"First eager, then patient, Insley went over 
his ground, setting forth by line and by line, by 
vision and by vision, the faith that was in him — 
faith in human nature to come into its own, faith 
in the lifeof a town to work into human life at its 
best. And always down the same road they 
went, they come a-canterin' back with Alex 
Proudfit's * Precisely. It is precisely what is 
happening. You can't force it. You mustn't 
force it. To do the best we can with ourselves 
and to help up an under dog or two — if he 
deserves it — that's the most Nature lets us 
in for. Otherwise she says : " Don't meddle. 
I'm doing this." And she's right. We'd 
bungle everything. Believe me, my dear fel- 
low, our spurts of civic righteousness and na- 
tional reform never get us anywhere in the long 
run. In the long run, things go along and go 
along. You can't stop them. If you're wise, 
you won't rush them.' 

"At this I couldn't keep still no longer. We 
was at the table then, and I looked over to 
Alex between the candlesticks and felt as if 
he was back in knickerbockers again, telling me 
God had made enough ponies so he could gallop 
his all day on the Plank Road if he wanted to. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 77 



((< 



You and Silas Sykes, Alex/ I says, *have 
come to the same motto. Silas says Nature 
is real handy about taking her course so be 
you don't yank open cocoons and buds and like 
that/ 

"*01d Silas/ says Alex. *Lord, is he still 
going on about everything ? Old Silas. . . .' 

"*Yes/ I says, ^he is. And so am I. Out 
by my woodshed IVe got a Greening apple tree. 
When it was about a year old a cow I used to 
keep browst it down. It laid over on the ground, 
broke clean off all but one little side of bark 
that kept right on doing business with sap, like 
it didn't know its universe was sat on. I didn't 
get time for a week or two to grub it up, and 
when I did go to it, I see it was still living, 
through that little pinch of bark. I liked the 
pluck, and I straightened it up and tied it to 
the shed. I used to fuss with it some. Once 
in a storm I went out and propped a dry-goods 
box over it. I kept the earth rich and drove 
the bugs off. I kind of got interested in seeing 
what it would do next. What it done was to 
grow like all possessed. It was twenty years 
ago and mor^e that the cow come by it, and this 
year I've had seven bushels of Greenings off 
that one tree. Suppose I hadn't tied it up ? ' 
You'd have saved yourself no end of 



ut 



78 MOTHERS TO MEN 

trouble, dear Calliope/ says Alex, *to say noth- 
ing of sparing the feelings of the cow/ 

"*I ain^t so anxious any more,' says I, * about 
sparing folks' feelings as I am about sparing 
folks. Nor I ain't so crazy as I used to be about 
saving myself trouble, either.' 

"^Dear Calliope,' says Alex, *what an advo- 
cate you are. Won't you be my advocate ?' 

"He wouldn't argue serious with me now no 
more than he would when he was in knicker- 
bockers. But yet he was adorable. When 
we got back to the library, I went on finishing 
up the books and I could hear him being ador- 
able. He dipped down into the past and 
brought up rich things — off down old ways of 
life in the village that he'd had a part in and 
then off on the new ways where his life had led 
him. Java — had Insley ever been in Java ? 
He must show him the moonstone he got there 
and tell him the story they told him about it. 
But the queerest moonstone story was one he'd 
got in Lucknow — so he goes on, and sends 
Bayless for a cabinet, and from one precious 
stone and another he just naturally drew out 
romances and adventures, as if he was ravelling 
the stones out into them. And then he begun 
taking down some of his old books. And when 
it come to books, the appeal to Insley was like 



MOTHERS TO MEN 79 

an appeal of friends, and he burrowed into 
them musty parchments abundant. 

"^By George/ Insley says once, *I didn't 
dream there were such things in Friendship 
Village/ 

"^Next thing you'll forget they're in the 
world,' says Alex, significant. * Believe me, a 
man like you ought not to be down here, or 
over to Indian Mound, either. It's an economic 
waste. Nature has fitted you for her glorious 
present and you're living along about four dec- 
ades ago. Don't you think of that ? . . . ' 

"Then the telephone on the library table 
rang and he answered a call from the city. * Oh, 
buy it in, buy it in, by all means,' he directs. 
^Yes, cable to-night and buy it in. That,' he 
says, as he hung up, *just reminds me. There's 
a first night in London to-night that I've been 
promising myself to see. . . . What a dog's 
life a business man leads. By the way,' he 
goes on, 'I've about decided to put in one of 
our plants around here somewhere — a tanner}% 
you know. I've been oflF to-day looking over sites. 
I wonder if you can't give me some information 
I'm after about land aroun4 Indian Mound. 
I'm not saying anything yet, naturally — they'll 
give other people a bonus to establish in their 
midst, but the smell of leather is too much for 



8o MOTHERS TO MEN 

them. We always have to surprise them into 
it. But talk about the ultimate good of a town 
... if a tannery isn't that, what is it ? ' 

"It was after nine o'clock when I got the 
books set right — I loved to handle them, and 
there was some I always looked in before I 
put them up because some of the pictures give 
me feelings I remembered, same as tasting some 
things will — spearmint and caraway and co- 
riander; Insley, of course, walked down with 
me. Alex wanted to send us in the automobile, 
but Pm kind of afraid of them in the dark. 
I can't get it out of my head that every bump 
we go over may be bones. And then I guess 
we both sort of wanted the walk. 

"Insley was like another man from the one 
that had come into the library that afternoon, 
or had been talking to us at Mis' Emmons's 
the night before. Down in the village, on Mis' 
Emmons's hearth, with Robin sitting opposite, 
it had seemed so easy to know ways to do, and 
to do them. Everything seemed possible, as 
if the whole stiif-muscled universe could be 
done things to if only everybody would once say 
to it : Our universe. But now, after his time 
with Alex, I knew how everything had kind of 
tightened, closed in around him, shot up into 
high walls. Money, tanneries, big deals by 



MOTHERS TO MEN 8i 

cable, moonstones from Java, they almost 
made me slimpse too, and think, What's the 
use of believing Alex Proudfit and me belong 
to the same universe ? So I guessed how Insley 
was feeling, ready to believe that he had got 
showed up to himself in his true light, as a 
young, emotioning creature who dreams of get- 
ting everybody to belong together, and yet can't 
find no good way. And Alex Proudfit's parting 
words must of followed him down the drive and 
out on to the Plank Road : — 

"*Take my advice. Don't spend yourself 
on this blessed little hole. It's dear to me, but 
it is a hole ... eh ? You won't get any 
thanks for it. Ten to one they'll turn on you if 
you try to be one of them. Get out of here as 
soon as possible, and be in the real world ! This 
is just make-believing — and really, you know, 
you're too fine a sort to throw yourself away 
like this. Old Nature will take care of the 
town in good time without you. Trust her !' 

"Sometimes something happens to make the 
world seem different from what we thought it 
was. Them times catch all of us — when we 
feel like we'd been let down gentle from some 
high foot-path where we'd been going along, 
and instead had been set to walk a hard road 
in a silence that pointed its finger at us. If we 



8a MOTHERS TO MEN 

get really knocked down sudden from a high 
foot-path, we can most generally pick ourselves 
up and rally. But when weVe been let down 
gentle by arguments that seem convincing, and 
by folks that seem to know the world better 
than we do, then's the time when there ain't 
much of any rally to us. If we're any good, I 
s'pose we can climb back without rallying. 
Rallying gives some spring to the climb, but 
just straight dog-climbing will get us there, too. 

"It was a lovely July night, with June not 
quite out of the world yet. There was that 
after-dark light in the sky that makes you feel 
that the sky is going to stay lit up behind and 
shining through all night, as if the time was so 
beautiful that celestial beings must be staying 
awake to watch it, and to keep the sky lit and 
turned down low. . . . We walked along the ' 
Plank Road pretty still, because I guessed how 
Insley's own thoughts was conversation enough 
for him ; but when we got a ways down, he kind 
of reached out with his mind for something and 
me being near by, his mind clutched at me. 

"*What if it is so. Miss Marsh?' he says. 
* What if the only thing for us to do is to tend 
to personal morality and an occasional lift 
to an under dog or two — " if he deserves it." 
What if that's all — they meant us to do ?' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 83 

"It's awful hard giving a reason for your 
chief notions. It's like describing a rose by the 
tape-measure. 

" ^ Shucks ! ' I says only. ^ Look up at the stars. 
I don't believe it.' 

"He laughed a little, and he did look up at 
them, but still I knew how he felt. And even 
the stars that night looked awful detached and 
able to take care of themselves. And they were 
a-shining down on the Plank Road that would 
get to be Daphne Street and go about its busi- 
ness of leading to private homes — private 
homes. The village, that little cluster of lights 
ahead there, seemed just shutting anybody else 
out, going its own way, kind of mocking any- 
body for any idea of getting really inside it. 
It was plain enough that Insley had nothing to 
hope for from Alex Proudfit. And Alex's serene 
sureness that Nature needed nobody to help, 
his real self-satisfied looking on at processes 
which no man could really hurry up — my, 
but they made you feel cheap, and too many 
of yourself, and like none of you had a license 
to take a-hold. For a second I caught myself 
wondering. Maybe Nature — stars and streets 
and processes — could work it out without us. 

" Something come against my foot. I pushed 
at it, and then bent over and touched it. It 



84 MOTHERS TO MEN 

was warm and yieldy, and I lifted it up. And 
it was a puppy that wriggled its body un- 
believable and flopped on to my arm its inch and 
a quarter of tail. 

"*Look at/ I says to Insley, which, of course, 
he couldn't do ; but I put the little thing over 
into his hands. 

"^Well, little brother,' says he. * Running 
away ? ' 

"We was just in front of the Cadozas', 
a tumble-down house halfway between Proud- 
fit House and the village. It looked like the 
puppy might belong there, so we turned in there 
with it. Vd always sort of dreaded the house, 
setting in back among lilacs and locusts and 
never lit up. When I stopped to think of it, 
I never seemed to remember much about those 
lilacs and locusts blooming — I suppose they 
did, but nobody caught them at it often. Some 
houses you always think of with their lilacs and 
locusts and wisteria and hollyhocks going all 
the time ; and some you never seem to connect 
up with being in bloom at all. Sonie houses 
you always seem to think of as being lit up to 
most of their windows, and some you can't 
call to mind as showing any way but dark. 
The Cadozas' was one of the unblossoming, 
dark kind, and awful ramshackle, besides. I 



MOTHERS TO MEN 85 

always use' to think it looked like it was wait- 
ing for some kind of happening, I didn't know 
what. And sometimes when I come by there 
in the dark, I used to think : It ain't happened 
yet. 

"We went around to the back door to rap, 
and Mis' Cadoza opened it — a slovenly look- 
ing woman she is, with no teeth much, and 
looking like what hair she's got is a burden to 
her. I remember how she stood there against 
a background of mussy kitchen that made you 
feel as if you'd turned something away wrong 
side out to where it wasn't meant to be looked 
at, 

" * Is it yours. Mis' Cadoza ? ' I says, Insley 
holding out the puppy. 

"'Murder, it's Patsy,' says Mis' Cadoza. 
*Give 'm here — he must of followed Spudge 
off. Oh, it's you. Miss Marsh.' 

"Over by the cook stove in the corner I see 
past her to something that made me bound to 
go inside a minute. It was a bed, all frowzy 
and tumbled, and in it was laying a little boy. 

"'Why,' I says, 'I heard Eph was in bed. 
What's the matter with him ?' And I went 
right in, past his mother, like I was a bom guest. 
She drew off, sort of grudging — she never liked 
any of us to go there, except when some of them 



86 MOTHERS TO MEN 

died, which they was always doing. *Come 
in and see Eph, Mr, Insley/ I says, and intro- 
duced him, 

"The little boy wasn't above eight years old 
and he wasn't above six years big. . . . He was 
laying real still, with his arms out of bed, and his 
little thin hands flat down on the dark covers. 
His eyes, looking up at us, watching, made me 
think of some trapped thing. 

"*Well, little brother,' says Insley, * what's the 
trouble ? ' 

"Mis' Cadoza come and stood at the foot 
of the bed and jerked at the top covers. 

"* I've put him in the bed,' she says, * because 
I'm wore out lifting him around. An' I've 
got the bed out here because I can't trapse 
back an' forth waitin' on him.' 

"^Is he a cripple ?' asks Insley, low. I liked 
so much to hear his voice — it was as if it lifted 
and lowered itself in his throat without his 
bothering to tell it which kind it was time to do. 
And I never heard his voice make a mistake. 

" ^ Cripple ? ' says Mis' Cadoza, in her kind 
of undressed voice. *No. He fell in a tub of 
hot water years ago, and his left leg is wither- 
m up. 

"*Let me see it,' says Insley, and pulled the 
covers back without waiting. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 87 

"There ain't nothing more wonderful than 
a strong, capable, quick human hand doing 
something it knows how to do. Insley's hands 
touched over the poor little leg of the child 
until I expected to see it get well right there 
under his fingers. He felt the cords of the knee 
and then looked up at the mother. 

"* Haven't they told you,' he says, 'that if 
he has an operation on his knee, you can have 
a chance at saving the leg ? I knew a case 
very like this where the leg was saved.' 

"'I ain't been to see nobody about it,' says 
Mis' Cadoza, leaving her mouth open after- 
wards, like she does. * What's the good ? I 
can't pay for no operation on him. I got all 
I can do to keep 'm alive.' 

"Eph moved a little, and something fell 
down on the floor. Mis' Cadoza pounced on 
it. 

"* Ain't I forbid you ?' she says, angry, and 
held out to us what she'd picked up — a little 
dab of wet earth. *He digs up all my house 
plants,' she scolds, like some sort of machinery 
grating down on one place continual, *an' he 
hauls the dirt out and lays there an' makes 
figgers. The idearl Gettin' the sheets a 
sight. . . .' 

"The child looked over at us, defiant. He 



88 MOTHERS TO MEN 

spoke for the first time, and I was surprised to 
hear how kind of grown-up his voice was. 

"*I can get 'em to look like faces/ he says. 
* I don't care what she says/ 

"^Show us,' commands Insley. 

"He got back the bit of earth from Mis' 
Cadoza, and found a paper for the crumbs, 
and pillowed the boy up and sat beside him. 
The j^thin, dirty little hands went to work as 
eager as birds pecking, and on the earth that 
he packed in his palm he made, with his thumb 
nail and a pen handle from under his pillow, 
a face — a boy's face, that had in it something 
that looked at you. * But I can never get 'em 
to look the same way two times,' he says to us, 
shy. 

"*He's most killed my Lady Washington 
geranium draggin' the clay out from under the 
roots,' Mis' Cadoza put in, resentful. 

"Insley sort of sweeps around and looks 
acrost at her, deep and gentle, and like he under- 
stood about her boy and her geranium consider- 
able better than she did. 

"*He won't do it any more,' he says. * He'll 
have something better.' 

"The boy looked up at him. 'What?' he 
asks. 

'Clay,' says Insley, 'in a box. With things 



i 



a 



MOTHERS TO MEN 89 

for you to make the clay like. Do you want 
that?' 

"The boy kind of curled down in his pillow 
and come as near to shuffling as he could in the 
bed, and he hadn't an idea what to say. But 
I tell you, his eyes, they wasn't like any trapped 
thing any more; they was regular hoy^s eyes, 
lit up about something. 

"*Mrs. Cadoza,' Insley says, *will you do 
something for me ? We're trying to get to- 
gether a little shrubbery, over at the college. 
May I come in and get some lilac roots from 
you some day.^ ' 

" Mis^ Cadoza looked at him — and looked. I 
don't s'pose it had ever come to her before that 
anybody would want anything [she had or any- 
thing she could do. 

" * Why, sure,' she says, only. * Sure, you can, 
Mr. What's-name.' 

"And then Insley put out his hand, and she 
took it, I noted special. I donno as I ever 
see anybody shake hands with her before, excep' 
when somebody was gettin' buried out of her 
house. 

"When we got out on the road again, I no- 
ticed that Insley went swinging along so's I 
could hardly keep up with him; and he done 
it sort of automatic, and like it was natural 



90 MOTHERS TO MEN 

to him. I didn't say anything. If IVe learned 
one thing living out and in among human beings, 
it's that if you don't do your own keeping still 
at the right time, nobody else is going to do it 
for you. He spoke up after a minute like I 
thought he would ; and he spoke up buoyant — 
kind of a reverent buoyant : — 

"*I don't believe we're discharged from the 
universe, after all, ' he says, and laughed a little. 
^I believe we've still got our job.' 

"I looked 'way down the Plank Road, on its 
way to its business of being Daphne Street, 
and it come to me that neither the one nor the 
other stopped in Friendship Village. But they 
led on out, down past the wood lots and the 
Pump pasture and across the tracks and up 
the hill, and right off into that sky that some- 
body was keeping lit up and turned down low. 
And I said something that I'd thought before : 

"* Ain't it,' I says, Mike sometimes everybody 
in the world come and stood right close up 
beside of you, and spoke through the walls of 
you for something inside of you to come out 
and be there with them } ' 

"'That's it,' he says, only. 'That's it.' But 
I see his mind nipped onto what mine meant, 
and tied it in the right place. 

"When we got to Mis' Emmons's comer, I 



MOTHERS TO MEN 91 

turned off from Daphne Street to go that way, 
because Fd told her I'd look in that night and 
see what they'd bought in town. It was late, 
for the village, but Mis' Emmons never minded 
that. The living-room light was showing 
through the curtains, and Insley, saying good 
night to me, looked towards the windows awful 
wistful. I guessed why. It was part because 
he felt as if he must see Robin Sidney and they 
must talk over together what Alex Proudfit 
had said to him. And part it was just plain 
because he wanted to see her again. 

"'Why don't you come in a minute,' I ^ays, 
* and ask after Christopher ? Then you can see 
me home.' 

"'Wouldn't they mind it being late?' he 
asks. 

"I couldn't help smiling at that. Once 
Mis' Emmons had called us all up by telephone 
at ten o'clock at night to invite us to her house 
two days later. She explained afterwards that 
she hadn't looked at the clock for a week, but 
if she had, she might have called us just the same. 
*For my life,' she says, 'I canH be afraid of ten 
o'clock. Indeed, I rather like it.' I told him 
this, while we was walking in from her gate. 

"'Mrs. Emmons,' he says, when she come to 
the door, 'I've come because I hear that you 



92 MOTHERS TO MEN 

like ten o'clock, and so do I. I wanted to 
ask if youVe ever been able to make it last ?' 

"*No/ she says. *I prefer a new one every 
night — and this one to-night is an exception- 
ally good one/ 

" She always answered back so pretty. I feel 
glad when folks can. It's like they had an 
extra brain to 'em. 

"Insley went in, and he sort of filled up the 
whole room, the way some men do. He wasn't 
so awful big, either. But he was pervading. 
Christopher had gone to bed, and Robin Sidney 
was sitting there near a big crock of hollyhocks 
— she could make the centre and life of a room 
a crock full of flowers just as you can make it a 
fireplace. 

"*Come in,' she says, 'and see what we 
bought Christopher. I wanted to put him in 
black velvet knickerbockers or silver armour, 
but Aunt Eleanor has bought chiefly khaki 
middies. She's such a sensible relative.' 

"*What are we going to do with him?' 
Insley asks. I loved the way he always said 
'we' about everything. Not 'they' or 'you,' 
but always, ' What are we going to do.' 

"'I'll keep him awhile,' Mis' Emmons says, 
* and see what develops. If I weren't going to 
Europe this fall — but something may happen. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 93 

Things do. Calliope/ she says to me, Mid I 
buy what I ought to have bought ? ' 

"I went over to see the things spread out on 
the table, and Insley turned round to where 
Robin was. I don't really believe he had been 
very far away from where she was since the 
night before, when Christopher come. And 
he got right into what he had to say, like he 
was impatient for the sympathy in her eyes 
and in her voice. 

"*I must tell you,' he says. *I could hardly 
wait to tell you. Isn't it great to be knocked 
down and picked up again, without having 
to get back on your own feet. I — wanted 
to tell you.' 

"*Tell me,' she says. And she looked at him 
in her nice, girl way that lent him her eyes in 
good faith for just a minute and then took them 
back again. 

"*I've been to see Alex Proudfit,' he said. 
*I've dined with him.' 

"I don't think she said anything at all, but 
Insley went on, absorbed in what he was saying. 

"*I talked with him,' he says, * about what 
we talked of last night — the things to do, here 
in the village. I thought he might care — I 
was foolish enough for that. Have you ever 
tried to open a door in a solid wall ? When 



94 MOTHERS TO MEN 

• 

I left there, I felt as if I'd tried just that. Seri- 
ously, have you ever tried to talk about the 
way things are going to be and to talk about it 
to a perfectly satisfied man ?' 

" Robin leaned forward, but I guess he thought 
that was because of her sympathy. He went 
right on : — 

"*I want never to speak of this to anyone 
else, but I can't help telling you. You — 
understand. You know what I'm driving at. 
Alex Proudfif is a good man — as men are 
counted good. And he's a perfect host, a fasci- 
nating companion. But he's a type of the most 
dangerous selfishness that walks the world — ' 

"Robin suddenly laid her hand, just for a 
flash, on Insley's arm. 

" ^ You mustn't tell me,' she says. * I ought to 
have told you before. Alex Proudfit — I'm 
going to be Alex Proudfit's wife.' 



V 

"In the next days things happened that none 
of us Friendship Village ladies is likely ever to 
forget. Some of the things was nice and some 
was exciting, and some was the kind that's 
nice after you Ve got the introduction wore off ; 
but all of them was memorable. And most all 
of them was the kind that when you' re on the 
train looking out the car window, or when you're 
home sitting in the dusk before it's time to 
light the lamp, you fall to thinking about and 
smiling over, and you have them always around 
with you, same as heirlooms you've got ready for 
yourself. 

"One of these was the Fourth of July that 
year. It fell a few days after Alex Proudfit 
come, and the last of the days was full of his 
guests arriving to the house party. The two 
Proudfit cars was racking back and forth to 
the station all day long, and Jimmy Sturgis, 
he went near crazy with getting the baggage up. 
I never see such a lot of baggage. *Land, land,' 
says Mis' Toplady, peeking out her window at 
it, * you'd think they was all trees and they'd 

95 



96 MOTHERS TO MEN 

come bringing extra sets of branches, regular 
forest size.' Mis' Emmons and Robin and 
Christopher went up the night before the Fourth 
— Mis' Emmons was going to do the chaperoii- 
ing, and Alex had asked me to be up there all I 
could to help him. He knows how I love to have 
a hand in things. However, I couldn't be there 
right at first, because getting ready for the 
Fourth of July was just then in full swing. 

"Do you know what it is to want to do over 
again something that you ain't done for years 
and years ? I don't care what it is — whether 
it's wanting to be back sitting around the dinner 
table of your home when you was twelve, and 
them that was there aren't there now; or 
whether it's rocking in the cool of the day on the 
front porch of some old house that got tore down 
long ago ; or whether it's walking along a road 
you use' to know every fence post of ; or fishing 
from a stream that's dried up or damned these 
twenty years ; or eating spice' currants or pickle' 
peaches that there aren't none put up like them 
now ; or hearing a voice in a glee club that don't 
sing no more, or milking a dead cow that wasnH 
dead on the spring mornings you mean about — 
no, sir, I don't care what one of them all it 
happens to be, if you know what it is to want to 
do it again and can't, 'count of death and dis- 



MOTHERS TO MEN 97 

tance and long-ago-ness, then I tell you you know 
one of the lonesomest, hurtingest feelings the 
human heart can, sole outside of the awful 
things. And that was what had got the matter 
with me awhile ago. 

" It had come on me in the meeting of towns- 
people called by Silas Sykes a few weeks before, 
to discuss how Friendship Village should cele- 
brate the Fourth. We hadn't had a Fourth in 
the village in years. Seeing the Fourth and the 
Cemetery was so closely connected, late years, 
Sodality had took a hand in the matter and had 
got fire-crackers and pistols voted out of town, 
part by having family fingers blowed off and 
clothes scorched full of holes, and part through 
Silas and the other dealers admitting they wan't 
no money in the stuff and they'd b? glad to be 
prevented by law from having to sell it. So we 
shut down on it the year after little Spudge 
Cadoza bit down on a cap to see if it'd go off, 
and it done so. But we see we'd made the 
mistake of not hatching up something to take 
the place of the noise, because the boys and girls 
all went oflf to the next-town Fourths and come 
home blowed up and scorched off, anyway. 
And some of the towns, especially Red Barns, 
that we can see from Friendship Village when 
it's clear, was feeling awful touchy and chip- 



98 MOTHERS TO MEN 

shouldered towards us, and their two weekly 
papers was saying we borrowed our year's supply 
of patriotism off the county, and sponged on 
public spirit, and like that. So the general 
Friendship feeling was that weM ought to have 
a doings this year, and Postmaster Sykes, that 
ain't so much public spirited as he is professional 
leading citizen, — platform introducer of all visit- 
ing orators and so on, — he called a mass-meeting 
to decide what to do. 

^^Mis' Sykes, she was awful interested, too, 
through being a born leader and up in arms most 
of the time to do something new. And this year 
she was anxious to get up something fancy to 
impress her niece with — the new niece that was 
coming to visit her, and that none of us had ever 
see, and that the Sykes's themselves had only 
just developed. Seems she was looking for her 
family tree and she wrote to Mis' Sykes about 
being connect'. And the letter seemed so swell, 
and the address so mouth-melting and stylish 
that Mis' Sykes up and invited her to Friendship 
Village to look herself up in their Bible, Born 
and Died part. 

"The very night of that public mass-meeting 
Miss Beryl Sessions — such was the niece's name 

« 

— come in on the Through, and Mis' Sykes, she 
snapped her up from the supper table to bring 



MOTHERS TO MEN 99 

her to the meeting and show her off, all brim- 
ming with the blood-is-thicker-than-water senti- 
ments due to a niece that looked like that. For 
I never see sweller. And being in the Glee Club 
I set where I got a good view when Mis' Sykes 
rustled into the meeting, last minute, in her 
best black cashmere, though it was an occasion 
when the rest of us would wear our serges and 
alapacas, and Mis' Sykes knew it. All us 
ladies see them both and took in every stitch 
they had on without letting on to unpack a 
glance, and we see that the niece was wearing 
the kind of a dress that was to ours what mince- 
pie is to dried apple, and I couldn't blame Mis' 
Sykes for showing her off, human. 

" Silas had had Dr. June open the meeting with 
prayer, and I can't feel that this was so much 
reverence in Silas as that he isn't real parlia- 
mentary nor yet real knowledgeable about what 
to do with his hands, and prayer sort of broke the 
ice for him.- That's the way Silas is. 

"* Folks,' says he, * we're here to consider the 
advisability of bein' patriotic this year. Of 
having a doings that'll shame the other towns 
around for their half-an'-half way of giving 
things. Of making the glorious Fourth a real 
business bringer. Of having a speech that'll 
bring in the country trade — the Honourable 



r- '; 






Mi. ^ ^ 

rf 



loo MOTHERS TO MEN 

Thaddeus Hyslop has been named by some. 
And of getting our city put in the class of the 
wide awake and the hustlers and the up-to-date 
and doing. It's a grand chance weVe passed 
up for years. What are we going to do for our- 
selves this year ? To decide it is the purpose 
of this mass-meetin'. Sentiments are now in 
order.' 

"Silas set down with a kitterin' glance to his 
new niece that he was host and uncle of and 
pleased to be put in a good light before, first 
thing so. 

"Several men hopped up — Timothy Top- 
lady saying that Friendship Village was a city 
in all but name and numbers, and why not prove 
it to the other towns ? Jimmy Sturgis that takes 
tintypes, besides running the 'bus and was all 
primed for a day full of both — * A glorious Fourth,' 
says he, * would be money in our pockets.' And 
the farm machinery and furniture dealers, 
and Gekerjeck, that has the drug store and the 
ice-cream fountain, and others, they spoke the 
same. Insley had to be to the college that night, 
or I don't believe the meeting would have gone 
the way it did go. For the first line and chorus 
of everything that all the men present said 
never varied: — 

"*The Fourth for a business bringer/ 



MOTHERS TO MEN loi 

"It was Threat Hubbelthwait that finally 
made the motion, and he wasn't real sober, like 
he usually ain't, but he wound up on the key- 
note : — 

"*I sold two hundred and four lunches the 
last Fourth we hed in Friendship Village,' says 
he, pounding his palm with his fist, ' an' I move 
you that we celebrate this comin' Fourth like 
the blazes.' 

"And though Silas softened it down some 
in putting it, still that was substantially the 
sentiment that went through at that mass- 
meeting, that was real pleased with itself be- 
cause of. 

"Well, us ladies hadn't taken no part. It 
ain't our custom to appear much on our feet at 
public gatherings, unless to read reports of a 
year's work, and so that night we never moved 
a motion. But we looked at each other, and us 
ladies has got so we understand each other's 
eyebrows. And we knew, one and all, that we 
was ashamed of the men and ashamed of 
their sentiments. But the rest didn't like to 
speak out, 'count of being married to them. And 
I didn't like to, 'count of not being. 

"But when they got to discussing ways and 
means of celebrating, a woman did get onto her 
feet, and a little lilt of interest run round the 



I02 MOTHERS TO MEN 

room like wind. It was Miss Beryl Sessions, 
the niece, that stood up like you'd unwrapped 
your new fashion magazine and unrolled her off'n 
the front page. 

"*I wonder,' says she — and her voice went 
all sweet and chirpy and interested, * whether 
it would amuse you to know some ways we 
took to celebrate the Fourth of July last year at 
home . . .' and while the men set paying at- 
tention to her appearance and thinking they was 
paying attention to her words alone, she went on 
to tell them how ^ at home ' the whole town had 
joined in a great. Fourth of July garden party on 
the village 'common,' with a band and lanterns 
and fireworks at night, and a big marquee in the 
middle, full of ice-cream. We made it,' she 
wound up, * a real social occasion, a town party 
with everybody invited. And the business 
houses said that it paid them over and over.' 

"Well, of course that went with the men. 
Land, but men is easy tamed, so be the tameress 
is somebody they ain't used to and is gifted with 
a good dress and a kind of a 'scalloped air. But 
when she also has some idea of business they go 
down and don't know it. *Why, I should think 
that'd take here like a warm meal,' says Timothy 
Toplady, instant — and I see Mis' Amanda 
Toplady's chin come home to place like she'd 



MOTHERS TO MEN 103 

heard Timothy making love to another woman. 
* Novel as the dickens/ says Simon Gekerjeck. 
*Move we adopt it.' And so they done. 

"While they was appointing committees I 
set up there in the Glee Club feeling blacker 
and blacker. Coming down to the meeting 
that night, I recollect I'd been extra gentle in 
my mind over the whole celebration idea. 
Walking along in the seven-o'clock light, with 
the sun shining east on Daphne Street and folks 
all streaming to the town-meeting, and me 
sensing what it was going to be for, Vd got 
all worked up to 'most a Declaration of Inde- 
pendence lump in my throat. When I went 
in the door to the meeting, little Spudge Ca- 
doza and some other children was hanging 
around the steps and Silas Sykes was driving 
them away; and it come to me how deathly 
ridiculous that was, to be driving children away 
from a meeting like that, when children is what 
such meetings is for; and I'd got to thinking 
of all the things Insley was hoping for us, and 
I'd been real lifted up on to places for glory. 
And here down had come the men with their talk 
about a paying Fourth, and here was Miss Beryl 
Sessions showing us how to celebrate in a way 
that seemed to me real sweet but not so very 
patriotic. It was then that all of a sudden it 



I04 MOTHERS TO MEN 

seemed to me Fd die, because I wanted so much 
to feel the way I'd use to feel when it was going 
to be the Fourth o' July. And when they 
sung * Star Spangled Banner ' to go home on and 
all stood up to the sentiment, I couldn't open my 
mouth. I can't go folks that stands up and 
carols national tunes and then talks about having 
a Fourth that'll be a real business bringer. 

"'What'd you think of the meeting?' says 
Mis' Toplady, low, to me on the way out. 
*I think,' says I, frank, 'it was darn.' 
'There's just exactly what we all think,' 
says Mis' Toplady, in a whisper. 

"But all the same, preparations was gone into 
head first. Most of us was put on to from one 
to five committees — I mean most of them that 
works. The rest of the town was setting by, 
watching it be [done for them, serene or snarl- 
ing, according to their lights. Of course us 
ladies worked, not being them that goes to a 
meeting an' sets with their mouths shut and 
then comes out and kicks at what the meetin' 
done. Yet, though we wan't made out of that 
kind of meal, we spoke our minds to each other, 
private. 

"*What under the canopy is a marquee?' 
asks Mis' Amanda Toplady, when we met at 
her house to plan about refreshments. 



it 



MOTHERS TO MEN 105 

" Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss spoke 
right up. 

"^Why, it's a finger ring,' she says. *One 
of them with stones running the long way. The 
minister's wife's got a blue stone one. . . .' 

"* Finger ring!' says Mis' Mayor Uppers, 
scornful. * It's a title. That's what it is. From 
England.' 

"We looked at them both, perplexish. Mis' 
Holcomb is always up on things — it was her 
that went into short sleeves when the rest of 
us was still crocheting cuff turnovers, uncon- 
scious as the dead. But Mis' Uppers had been 
the Mayor's wife, and though he'd rtin away, 
'count o' some money matter, still a title is a 
title, an' we thought Mis' Uppers had ought to 
know. 

"Then Abagail Arnold, that keeps the home 
bakery, she spoke up timid. *I see,' she says, 
^in the Caterer^ s Gazette a, picture called 
"Marquee Decorated for Fete." The picture 
wan't nothing but a striped tent. Could a tent 
have anything to do with it ?' 

"*Pity sakes, no,' says Mis' Uppers. 'This 
is somethin' real city done, Abagail.' 

"We worked on what we could, but we all felt 
kind of lost and left out of it, and like we was 
tinkering with tools we didn't know the names 



io6 MOTHERS TO MEN 

of and a-making something we wasn't going to 
know how to use. And when the article about 
our Fourth flared out in the Friendship Daily 
and Red Bams and Indian Mound weeklies, 
we felt worse than we had before: * Garden 
Party/ 'All Day Fete.' 'Al Fresco Celebra- 
tion,' the editors had wrote it up. 

"'All what?^ says Mis' Uppers, listening ir- 
ritable to the last one. * I can't catch that word 
no more'n a rabbit.' 

" ' It's a French word,' Mis' Holcomb told her, 
superior. 'Seems to me I've, heard it means a 
failure. It's a funny way to put it, ain't it ? 
I bet, though, that's what it'll be.' 

"But the men, my, the men thought they was 
doing things right. The Coimmittee on Orator, 
with Silas for rudder, had voted itself Fifty 
Dollars to squander on the speech, and they had 
engaged the Honourable Thaddeus Hyslop, that 
they'd hoped to, and that was formerly in our 
legislature, to be the orator of the day; they 
put up a platform and seats on the 'common' 
— that wan't nothing but the market where 
loads of wood stood to be sold; they was 
a-going to cut evergreens and: plant them there 
for the day ; the Committee on Fireworks was 
a-going to buy set pieces for the evening ; they 
was a-going to raise Ned. Somebody that wad on 



MOTHERS TO MEN 107 

one of the committees wanted to have some sort 
of historic scenes, but the men wouldn't hear to it, 
because that would take away them that had to 
do the business in the stores ; no caluthumpians, 
no grand basket dinner — just the garden party, 
real sweet, with Miss Beryl Sessions and a 
marquee full of ice-cream that the ladies was 
to make. 

"It sounds sort of sacrilegious to me,' says 
Mis' Holcomb, ^connectin' the Fourth up with 
society and secular doin's. When I was young, 
my understandin' of a garden party would of 
been somethin' worldly. Now it seems it's 
patriotic. Well, I wonder how it's believed to 
be in the sight of the Lord ? ' 

"But whether it was right or whether it was 
wrong, none of it rung like it had ought to of 
rang. They wan't no glow to it. We all went 
around like getting supper on wash-day, and 
not like getting up a meal for folks that meant 
a lot to us. It wan't going to be any such Fourth 
as I'd meant about and wanted to have come 
back. The day come on a pacing, and the 
nearer it come, the worse all us ladies felt. And 
by a few days before it, when our final committee 
meeting come off in Abagail Arnold's home 
bakery, back room, 'count of being central, 
we was all blue as the grave, and I donno but 



io8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

bluer. We set waiting for Silas that was having 
a long-distance call, and Abagail was putting in 
the time frosting dark cakes in the same room. 
We was most all there but the niece Miss Beryl 
Sessions. She had gone home, but she was 
coming back on the Fourth in an automobile 
full o' city folks. 

"*The marquee^ s come,' says Mis' Holcomb, 
throwing out the word clickish. 

"Nobody said anything. Seems it was a tent 
all along. 

"* Silas has got in an extra boy for the day,' 

says Mis' Sykes, complacent. *It's the littlest 

Cadoza boy, Spudge. He's goin' to walk up an' 

down Daphne Street all day, with a Prize Coffee 

/board on his back.' 

"* Where's Spudge's Fourth comin' in?' I 
couldn't help askin'. 

"Mis' Sykes stared. She always could look 
you down, but she's got a much flatter, thicker 
stare since her niece come. * What's them 
kind o' folks for but such work ? ' says she, 
puckering. 

"*0h, I donno, I donno,' says I. *I thought 
mebbe they was partly made to thank the Lord 
for bein' born free.' 

"*How unpractical you talk. Calliope,' she 
says. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 109 

"*I donno that word/ says I, reckless from 
being pent up. *But it seems like a liberty- 
lovin' people had ought to hev one day to love 
liberty on an' not tote groceries and boards and 
such/ 

'^^DonH it!^ says Mis* Holcomb-that-was- 
Mame-Bliss, explosive. 

"*What you talking?' says Mis' Sykes, cold. 
* Don't you know the Fourth of July can be 
made one of the best days of the year for 
your own town's good ? What's that if it ain't 
patriotic ? ' 

" * It's Yankee shrewd,' says I, snapping some, 
that's what it is. It ain't Yankee spirited, 
by a long shot.' 

"'"5y a long shot^^'^ quotes Mis' Sykes, 
withering. She always was death on wording, 
and she was far more death after her niece come. 
But I always thought, and I think now, that 
correcting your advisary's grammar is like tell- 
ing him there's a smooch on his nose, and they 
ain't either of them parliamental or decent. 

"Mis' Uppers sighed. *The whole thing,' 
says she, candid, * sounds to me like Fourth o' 
July in Europe or somewheres. No get-up-an'- 
get anywheres to it. What do they do in Europe 
on the Fourth o' July, anyway ?' she wondered. 
*I donno's I ever read.' 



no MOTHERS TO MEN 

" * I donno, either,' says Mis' Holcomb, dark, 
*but I bet you it's one of these All Frost cele- 
brations — or whatever it is they say.' 

"Mis' Toplady set drying her feet by Abagail's 
stove, and she looked regular down in the mouth. 
*Well, sir,' she said, *a Fourth o' July all ro- 
settes an' ribbin's so don't sound to me one bit 
like the regular Fourth at all. It don't sound 
to me no more'n the third — or the fifth.' 

"I was getting that same homesick feeling 
that I'd had off and on all through the getting 
ready, that hankering for the old kinds of 
Fourths of Julys when I was a little girl. When 
us girls had a quarter apiece to spend, and 
father'd cover the quarter with his hands on 
the gate-post for us to guess them ; and when 
the boys picked up scrap-iron and sold old 
rubbers to get their Fourth money. It wan't 
so much what we used to do that I wanted 
back as it was the feeling. Why, none of our 
spines use' to be laid down good and flat in our 
backs once all day long. And I wisht what I'd 
wisht more than once since the mass-meeting, 
that some of us ladies had of took hold of that 
Fourth and had run it so's 'twould of been 
like you mean 'way inside when you say *The 
Fourth of July' — and that death and distance 
and long-ago-ness is awful in the way of. 



MOTHERS TO MEN in 

"*WeM ought to of had a grand basket 
dinner in the Depot Woods,' I says, restless. 

" * An' a p'rade,' says Mis' Toplady. ! I donno 
nothin' that makes me feel more patriotic than 
the minute before the p'rade comes by,' 

"^An' children in the Fourth somehow,' Mis' 
Uppers says, 'Land, children is who it's for, 
anyhow,' she says, like I'd been thinking ; 'an^ all 
we've ever done for 'em about it is to leave 'em 
kill 'emselves with it.' 

"Well, it was there, just there, and before 
Mis' Sykes could dicker a reply that in come 
tearing her husband from his long-distance tele- 
phoning, and raced into the room like he hadn't 
a manner in his kit. 

"'We're all over with,' Silas shouts. 'It's all 
done for ! Thaddeus Hyslop is smashed an' 
bleedin'. He can't come. We ain't got no 
speech. His automobile's turned over on top of 
his last speakin' place. Everybody else that 
ain't one-horse is sure to be got for somewheres 
else. Our Fourth of July is rooned. We're done 
for. The editor's gettin' it in the Weekly so's to 
warn the county. We'll be the Laughing Stock. 
Dang the luck !' says Silas ; 'why don't some o' 
you say somethin' ?' 

"But it wasn't all because Silas was doing it 
all that the men didn't talk, because when he'd 



112 MOTHERS TO MEN 

Stopped, they all stood there with their mouths 
open and never said a word. Seems to me I 
did hear Timothy Toplady bring out, 'Blisterin' 
Benson,' but nobody offered nothing more fertile. 
That is, nobody of the men did. But 'most be- 
fore I got my thoughts together I heard two feet 
of a chair come down onto the floor, and Mis' 
Amanda Toplady stood up there by Abagail's 
cook stove, and she took the griddle lifter and 
struck light on the side of the pipe. 

" * Hurrah ! ' she says. * Now we can have a real 
Fourth. A Fourth that does as a Fourth is.' 

"*What you talkin', Amanda Toplady.^' 
says Silas, crisp ; and * 'Mandy, what the blazes 
do you mean ?' says Timothy, her lawful lord. 
But Mis' Toplady didn't mind them, nor mind 
Mis' Sykes, that was staring at her flat and thick. 

"*I mean,' says Mis' Toplady, reckless, 
* I been sick to death of the idea of a Fourth with 
no spirit to it. I mean I been sick to death of 
a Fourth that's all starched white dresses an' 
company manners an' no hurrahs anywheres 
about it. An' us ladies, most all of us, feels the 
same. We didn't like to press in, bein' you 
men done the original plannin', an' so not one of 
us has said "P'rade," nor nothin' else to you. 
But now that your orator has fell through on 
himself, you men just leave us ladies in on this 



MOTHERS TO MEN 113 

i 

thing to do more'n take orders, an' you needn't 
be the Laughin' Stock o' nothin' an' nobody. I 
guess you'll all stand by me. What say, 
ladies ?' 

"Well, sir, you'd ought to of heard us. We 
joined in like a patch of grasshoppers singing. 
They wasn't one of us that hadn't been dying 
to get our hands on that Fourth and make it a 
Fourth full of unction and oil of joy, like the 
Bible said, and must of meant what we meant. 

"*0h, ladies,' I remember I says, fervent, ^I 
feel like we could make a Fourth o' July just 
like stirrin' up a white cake, so be we was let.' 

"^What d' you know about managin' a 
Fourth ? ' snarls Silas. ^You'll have us all in the 
hole. You'll have us shellin' out of our own 
pockets to make up — ' 

"Mis' Toplady whirled on him. * Would you 
druther have Red Barns an' Indian Mound 
a-jumpin' on you through the weekly press 
for bein' bluffers, an' callin' us cheap an' like that, 
or would you druther not ?' she put it to him. 

"*Dang it,' says Silas, *I never tried to do a 
thing for this town that it didn't lay down an' 
roll all over me. I wish I was dead.' 

"*You wan't tryin' to do this thing for this 
town,' says Mis' Toplady back at him, like the 
wind. * You was tryin' to do it for the stores of 



114 MOTHERS TO MEN 

this town, an' you know it. You was tryin' to 
ride the Fourth for a horse to the waterin' 
trough o' good business, an' you know it, Silas 
Sykes,' says she, * an' so was Jimmy and Threat 
an' all of you. The hull country tries to get be- 
hind the Fourth of July an' make money over its 
back like a counter. It ain't what was meant, 
an' us ladies felt it all along. An' neither was 
it meant for a garden party day alone, though 
that^^ says Mis' Toplady, gracious, *is a real 
sweet side idea. An' Mis' Sykes an' Mis' 
Sessions had ought to go on an' run that part 
of it, bein' the — tent's here,' she could not 
bring herself to use that other word. 'But,' 
she says, 'that ain't all of a real Fourth, nor 
yet a speech ain't, though he did use to be in the 
legislature. Them things alone don't make a 
real flag, liberty-praisin' Fourth, to me nor to 
none of us.' 

"'Well,' says Silas, sour, 'what you goin' to 
do if the men decides to let you try this ?' 

'"That ain't the way,' says Mis' Toplady, 
like a flash; 'it ain't for the men to let us do 
nothin'. It's for us all to do it together, yoke to 
yoke, just like everything else ought to be done 
by us both, an' no talk o' "rt^nwin"' by either 
side.' 

" ' But what's the idee — ' what's the idee ? ' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 115 

says Silas. ^Dang it all, somebody's got to hev 
an idee.' 

"^Us ladies has got 'em/ says Mis' Toplady, 
calm. *An',' says she, *one o' the first of 'em is 
that if we have anything to do with runnin' the 
Fourth of our forefathers, then after 10 a.m., 
all day on that day, every business house in town 
has got to shut down.' 

" ^ What ? ' says Silas, his voice slippin'. ^ Gone 
crazy-headed, hev ye ? ' 

**^No, Silas,' says Mis' Toplady, * nor yet hev 
we gone so graspin' that we can't give up a day's 
trade to take notice of our country.' 

^^^Lord Harry,' says Silas, ^you can't get a 
dealer in town to do it, an' you know it.' 

"*0h, yes, you can, Silas,' says somebody, 
brisk. And it was Abagail, frosting dark cakes 
over by the side of the room. ^I was goin' to 
shut up shop, anyway, all day on the Fourth,' 
Abagail says. 

"^An' lose the country trade in lunches?' 
yells Silas. 'Why, woman, you'd be Ten Dollars 
out o' pocket.' 

"'I wan't never one to spend the mornin' 
thankin' God an' the afternoon dippin' oysters,' 
says Abagail. And Silas scrunched. He done 
that one year when his Thanksgiving oysters 
come late, and he knew he done it. 



ii6 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"Well, they went over it and over it and tried 
to think of some other way, and tried to hatch 
up some other speaker without eating up the 
whole Fifty Dollars in telephone tolls, and tried 
most other things. And then we told them 
what we'd thought of different times, amongst 
us as being features fit for a Fourth in the sight 
of the Lord and the sight of men. And they 
hemmed and they hawed and they give in about 
as graceful as a clothes-line winds up when 
youVe left it out in the sleet, but they did give 
in and see reason. Timothy last — that's quite 
vain of being firm. 

"'If we come out with a one-horse doin's, 
seem's like it'd be worse than sittin' down flat- 
foot failed,' he mourns, grieving. 

"Amanda, his wife, give him one of her looks. 
* Timothy,' says she, 'when, since you was 
married to me, did I ever fail to stodge up a 
company dinner or a spare bed or a shroud 
when it was needed sudden ? When did any 
of us ladies ever fail that's here ? Do you 
sp'ose we're any more scant of idees about our 
own nation ?' 

"And Timothy had to keep his silence. He 
knew what she said was the Old Testament 
truth. But I think what really swung them 
all round was the thought of Red Barns and 



MOTHERS TO MEN 117. 

Indian Mound. Imagination of what them two 
weekly papers would say, so be we petered out 
on our speech and didn't offer nothing else, 
was too much for flesh and blood to bear. And 
the men ended by agreeing to seeing to shutting 
every business house in Friendship Village and 
they went off to do it, — resolved, but groan- 
ing some, like men will. 

"Mis' Sykes, she made some excuse and went, 
too. TU run the garden party part,' says she. 
*My niece an' I'll do that, an' try our best to 
get some novelty into your Fourth. An' we'll 
preside on the marquee, like we'd agreed. 
More I don't say.' 

"But the rest of us, we stayed on there at 
Abagail's, and we planned like mad. 

"We didn't look in no journal nor on no wo- 
man's page for something new. We didn't 
rush to our City relations for novelties. We 
didn't try for this and that nor grasp at no 
agony whatever. We just went down deep 
into the inside of our understanding and thought 
what the Fourth was and how them that made 
it would of wanted it kept. No fingers blowed 
off nor clothes scorched up, no houses burned 
down, no . ear-drums busted out — none of 
them would of been in their programme, and 
they wan't in ours. Some of the things that 



ji8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

was in ours weM got by hearing Insley tell 
what they was doin' other places. Some o' 
the things he suggested to us. Some o' the 
things we got by just going back and back down 
the years an' remembering — not so much what 
weM done as the way we use' to feel, long ago, 
when the Fourth was the Fourth and acted like it 
knew it. Some of the things we got by just 
reaching forward and forward, and seeing what 
the Fourth is going to mean to them a hundred 
years from now — so be we do our part. And 
some of the things we got through sheer make- 
shift woman intelligence, that put its heads 
together and used everything it had, that had 
anything to do with the nation, or the town, 
or with really living at all the way that first 
Fourth of July meant about, 'way down inside. 
*^ Before it was light on the morning of the 
Fourth, I woke up, feeling all happy and like 
I wanted to hurry. I was up and dressed be* 
fore the sun was up, and when I opened my front 
door, I declare it was just like the glory of the 
Lord was out there waiting for me. The 
street was laying all still and simple, like it 
was ready and waiting for the light. Early as 
it was, Mis' Holcomb was just shaking her 
breakfast table-cloth on her side stoop, and 
she waved it to me, big and billowy and white. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 119 

like a banner. And I ofFs with my apron and 
waved it back, and it couldn't of meant no more 
to either of us if we had been shaking out the 
folds of flags. It was too early for the country 
wagons to be rattling in yet, and they wan't 
no other sounds — except a little bit of a pop 
now and then over to where Bennie Uppers 
and little Nick Toplady was up and out, throw- 
ing torpedoes onto the bricks; and then the 
birds that was trilling an' shouting like mad, till 
every tree all up and down Daphne Street and 
all up and down the town and the valley was 
just one living singing. And all over every- 
thing, like a kind of a weave to it, was that 
something that makes a Sunday morning and 
some holiday mornings better and sweeter and 
goldener than any other day* I ain't got much 
of a garden, not having any real time to fuss 
in it, but I walked out into the middle of the 
little patch of pinks and parsley that I have 
got, and I says 'way deep in me, deeper than 
thinking: 'It don't make no manner of dif- 
fer'nce how much of a fizzle the day ends up 
with, this, here and now, is the way it had 
ought to start.' 

" Never, not if I live till beyond always, will 
I forget how us ladies' hearts was in our mouths 
when, along about 'leven o'clock, we heard the 



I20 MOTHERS TO MEN 

Friendship Village Stonehenge band coming 
fifing along, and we knew the parade was begun. 
We was all on the market square — hundreds 
of us, seems though. Red Barns and Indian 
Mound had turned out from side to side of 
themselves, mingling the same as though plough- 
shares was pruning-hooks — or whatever that 
quotation time is — both towns looking for 
flaws in the day, like enough, but both shutting 
up about it, biblical. Even the marquee, with 
its red and white stripes, showing through the 
trees, made me feel good. *Land, land,' Mis' 
Toplady says, ^it looks kind of homey and old- 
fashioned, after all, don't it ? I mean the — 
tent,' she says — she would not say the other 
word; but then I guess it made her kind of 
mad seeing Mis' Sykes bobbing around in there 
in white duck an' white shoes — her that ain't 
a grandmother sole because of Nature and not 
at all through any lack of her own years. 
Everything was all seeming light and confident 
— but I tell you we didn't feel so confident as 
we'd meant to when we heard the band a-com- 
ing to the tune o' ^Hail, Columbia ! Happy 
Land.' And yet now, when I look back on 
that Independence Day procession, it seems like 
regular floats is no more than toy doings be- 
side of it. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 121 

"What do you guess us ladies had thought 
up for our procession, — with Insley back of 
us, letting us think we thought it up alone ? 
Mebbe you'll laugh, because it wan't expensive 
to do ; but oh, I think it was nice. ^ We'd took 
everything in the town that done the town's 
work, and we'd run them all together. We 
headed off with the fire-engine, 'count of the 
glitter — and we'd loaded it down with flags 
and flowers, and the hook and ladder and hose- 
carts the same, wheels and sides ; and flags 
in the rubber caps of the firemen up top. Then 
we had the two big sprinkling carts, wound 
with bunting, and five-foot flags flying from 
the seats. Then come all the city teams 
drawn by the city horses — nice, 'plump horses 
they was, and rosettes on them, and each man 
had decorated his wagon and was driving it 
in his best clothes. Then come the steam roller 
that Friendship Village and Red Barns and 
Indian Mound owns together and scraps over 
some, though that didn't appear in its appear- 
ance, pufiing along, with posies on it. Then 
there was the city electric light repair wagon, 
with a big paper globe for an umbrella, and the 
electric men riding with their leggings on and 
their spurs, like they climb the poles ; and 
behind them the telephone men was riding — 



iia MOTHERS TO MEN 

because the town owns its own telephone, too 
— and then the four Centrals, in pretty shirt- 
waists, in a double-seated buggy loaded with 
flowers — the telephone office we'd see to it 
was closed down, too, to have its Fourth, like 
a human being. And marching behind them 
was the city waterworks men, best bib and 
tucker apiece. And then we hed out the gal- 
vanized garbage wagon that us ladies hed 
bought ourselves a year ago, and that wasn't 
being used this year count of the city pleading 
too poison poor; and it was all scrubbed up 
and garnished and filled with ferns and drove 
by its own driver and the boy that had use' to 
go along to empty the cans. And then of 
course they was more things ^ — some of them 
with day fireworks shooting up from them — 
but not the hearse, though we had all we could 
do to keep Timothy Toplady from having it 
in, 'count of its common public office. 

^*Well, and then we'd done an innovation — 
an' this was all Insley's idea, and it was him that 
made us believe we could do it. Coming next, 
in carriages and on foot, was the mayor and the 
city council and every last man or woman that 
had anything to do with running the city life. 
They was all there — city treasurer, clerk of 
the court, register of deeds, sheriffs, marshals, 



MOTHERS TO MEN 133 

night-watchmen, health officer, postmaster, jan- 
itor of the city hall, clerks, secretaries, sten- 
ographers, school board, city teachers, and every 
one of the rest — they was all there, just like 
they had belonged in the p'rade the way them 
framers of the first Fourth of July had meant 
they should fit in : Conscience and all. But 
some of them servants of the town had made 
money off'n its good roads, and some off'n 
its saloons, and some off'n getting ordinances 
repealed, and some ofPn inspecting buildings 
and sidewalks that they didn't know nothing 
about, and some was making it even then by pav- 
ing out into the marsh ; and some in yet other 
ways that wasn't either real elbow work nor 
clean head work. What else could they do ? 
We'd ask' them to march because they repre- 
sented the town, and rather'n own they didnH 
represent the town, there they was marching; 
but if some of them didn't step down Daphne 
Street feeling green and sick and sore and right 
down schoolboy ashamed of themselves, then 
they ain't got the human thrill in them that 
somehow I cannot believe ever dies clear out 
of nobody. They was a lump in my throat 
for them that had sold themselves, and they 
was a lump for them that hadn't — but oh, 
the differ'nce in the lumps. 



124 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"'Land, land,' I says to Mis' Toplady, 'if 
we ain't done another thing, we've made 'em 
remember they're servants to Friendship Vil- 
lage — like they often forget.' 

"'Ain't we ?' she says, solemn. 'Ain't we ?' 
"And then next behind begun the farm things : 
the threshin' machines and reapers and binders 
and mowers and like that, all drawn by the 
farm horses and drove by their owners and 
decorated by them, jolly and gay; and, too, 
all the farm horses for miles around — we was 
going to give a donated surprise prize for the 
best kep' and fed amongst them. And last, 
except for the other two bands sprinkled along, 
come the leading citizens, and who do you 
guess they was ? Not Silas nor Timothy nor 
Eppleby nor even Doctor June, nor our other 
leading business men and our three or four 
professionals — no, not them ; but the real, 
true, leading citizens of Friendship Village and 
Indian Mound and Red Barns and other towns 
and the farms between — the children^ over 
two hundred of them, dressed in white if they 
had it and in dark if they didn't, with or with- 
out shoes, in rags or out of them, village-tough 
descended or with pew-renting fathers, all the 
same and together, and carrying a flag and sing- 
ing to the tops of their voices 'Hail, Columbia,' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 125 

that the bands kept a-playing, some out of 
plumb as to time, but all fervent and joyous. 
It was us women alone that got up that part. 
My, I like to think about it. 

"They swung the length of Daphne Street 
and twice around the market square, and they 
come to a halt in front of the platform. And 
Doctor June stood up before them all, and he 
prayed like this : — 

" * Lord God, that let us start free an' think 
we was equal, give us to help one another to be 
free an' to get equal, in deed an' in truth.' 

"And who do you s'pose we hed to read the 
Declaration of Independence ? Little Spudge 
Cadoza, that Silas had been a-going to hev 
walk up and down Daphne Street with a board 
on his back — Insley thought of him, and we 
picked him out a-purpose. And though he 
didn't read it so thrilling as Silas would of, 
it made me feel the way no reading of it has ever 
made me feel before — oh, because it was kind 
of like we'd snapped up the little kid and- set 
him free all over again, even though he wasn't 
it but one day in the year. And it sort of 
seemed to me that all inside the words he read 
was trumpets and horns telling how much^them 
words was going to mean to him and his kind 
before he'd had time to die. And then the 



126 MOTHERS TO MEN 

Glee Club struck into * America/ and the whole 
crowd joined in without being expected, and 
the thre^ bands that was laying over in the 
shade hopped up and struck in, too — and I 
bet they could of heard us to Indian Mound. 
Leastways to Red Barns, that we can see from 
Friendship Village when it's clear. 

**The grand basket dinner in the Depot 
Woods stays in my head as one picture, all 
full of veal loaf and 'scalloped potato and fruit 
salad and nut-bread and deviled eggs and 
bake' beans and pickle' peaches and layer cake 
and drop sponge-cake and hot coffee — the kind 
of a dinner that comes crowding to your thought 
whenever you think * Dinner ' at your hungriest. 
And after we'd took care of everybody's baskets 
and set them under a tree for a lunch towards 
six, us ladies went back to the market square. 
And over by the marquee we see the men 
gathered — all but Insley, that had slipped 
away as quick as we begun telling him how much 
of it was due to him. Miss Beryl Sessions had 
just arrived, in a automobile, covered with 
veils, and she was introducing the other men 
to her City friends. Us ladies sort of kittered 
around back of them, not wanting to press 
ourselves forward none, and we went up to 
the door of the marquee where, behind the 



MOTHERS TO MEN 127 

refreshment table, Mis' Sykes was a-standing 
in her white duck. 

"'My,' says Mis' Holcomb to her, *it's all 
going off nice so far, ain't it ? ' 

" 'They ain't a great deal the matter with it,' 
says Mis' Sykes, snappy. 

"'Why, Mis' Sykes,' says Mis' Uppers, 
grieving, 'the parade an' the basket dinner 
seemed to me both just perfect.' 

"'The parade done well enough,' sayd Mis' 
Sykes, not looking at her. ' I donno much about 
the dinner.' 

"And all of a sudden we recollected that she 
hadn't been over to the grand basket dinner 
at all. X 

'"Why, Mis' Sykes,' sa>^ lis' Toplady, 
blank, 'ain't you et nothi|K 

'"My niece,' says^/"^ :es, dignified, 

'didn't get here till r vas I to leav6 

in the tent? I've et, e, cold, 'two 

dishes of ice-cream an chocolate nut- 

cakes.' 

"Mis' Toplady just swoo^^s over towards 
her. 'Why, my land,' she says, hearty, 'they's 
stuff an' to spare packed over there under the 
trees. You go right on over and get your 
dinner. Poke right into any of our baskets — 
Ours is grouped around mine that's tied with 



128 MOTHERS TO MEN 

a red bandanna to the handle. And leave 
us tend the marquee. What say, ladies ?' 

"And I don't think she even sensed she used 
that niame. 

"When she'd gone, I stood a minute in the 
marquee door looking off acrost the market 
square, hearing Miss Beryl Sessions and the 
men congratulating each other on the glorious 
Fourth they was a-having, and the City folks 
praising them both sky high. 

"^Real nice idee it was,' says Silas, with his 
hands under his best coat tails. ^Nice, tastey, 
up-to-date Fourth. And cheap to do.' 

"^Yes, we all hung out for a good Fourth 
this year,' says Timothy, complacent. 

"*It's a simply lovely idea,' says Miss Beryl 
Sessions, all sweet and chirpy and interested, 
Hhis making the Fourth a county party and 
getting everybody in town, so. But tell me: 
Whatever made you close your shops ? I 
thought the Fourth could always be made to 
pay for itself over and over, if the business 
houses went about it right.' 

" ^Oh, well,' says Silas, lame but genial, *we 
closed up to-day. We kind o' thought we 
would.' 

"But I stood looking off acrost the market 
square, where the children was playing, and 



MOTHERS TO MEN 129 

quoits was being pitched, and the ball game 
was going to commence, and the calathumpians 
was capering, and most of Red Barns and 
Indian Mound and Friendship Village was 
mingling, lion and lamb ; and I looked on along 
Daphne Street, where little Spudge Cadoza 
wasn't walking with a Prize Coffee board on his 
back, — and all of a sudden I felt just the way 
Fd wanted to feel, in spite of all the distance 
and long-ago-ness. And I turned and says to 
the other women inside the marquee : — 

"* Seems to me,' I says, ^as if the Fourth of 
July had paid for itself, over and over. Oh, 
don't it to you ?' 



VI 

*'The new editor of the Friendship Village 
Evening Daily give a fine write-up of the cele- 
bration. He printed it on the night after the 
Fourth, not getting out any paper at all on the 
day that was the day; but on the night after 
that, the news columns of his paper fell flat 
and dead. In a village the day following a 
holiday is like the hush after a noise. The 
whole town seems like it was either asleep or on 
tiptoe. . And in Friendship Village this hush 
was worse than the hush of other years. Other 
years they'd usually been accidents to keep 
track of, and mebbe even an amputation or 
two to report. But this Fourth there was no 
misfortunes whatever, -nor nothing to make 
good reading for the night of July 6. 

"So the editor thought over his friends and 
run right down the news column, telling what 
there zvasn^t. Like this : — 

"^Supper Table Jottings 

" * Postmaster Silas Sykes is well. 
" * Timothy Toplady has not had a cold since 
before Christmas. Prudent Timothy. 

130 



(MOTHERS TO MEN 131 



C< 



* Jimmy Sturgis has not broken his leg yet 
this year as he did last. Keep it up, Jimmy. 

" * Eppleby Holcomb has not been out of town 
for quite a while. 

" * None of the Friendship ladies has given a 
party all season. 

"*The First Church is not burnt down nor 
damaged nor repaired. Insurance ^750. 

** * Nothing local is in much of any trouble. 

" * Nobody is dead here to-day except the usual 
ones. 

" * Nobody that's got a telephone in has any 
company at the present writing. Where is 
the old-time hospitality ? 

Subscriptions payable in advance. 
Subscriptions payable in advance. 
Subscriptions payable in advance.' 
It made quite some fun for us, two or three 
of us happening in the post-office store when 
the paper come out — Mis' Sykes and Mis' 
Toplady and me. But we took it some to heart, 
too, because to live in a town where they ain't 
nothing active happening all the time is a kind 
of running account of everybody that's in the 
town. And us ladies wan't that kind. 

"All them locals done to Silas Sykes, though, 
was to set him fussing over nothing ever hap- 
pening to him. Silas is real particular about 






132 MOTHERS TO MEN 

his life, and I guess he gets to thinking how life 
ain't so over-particular about him. 

"*Mydum/he says that night, * that's just 
the way with this town. I always calculated 
my life was goin' to be quite some pleasure to 
me. But I don't see as it is. If I thought I 
was going to get sold in my death like I've been 
in my life, I swan I'd lose my interest in dyin'.' 

"Mis' Timothy Toplady was over in behind 
the counter picking out her butter, and she 
whirled around from sampling the jars, and she 
says to Mis' Sykes and me : — 

"^Ladies,' she says, ^le's us propose it to the 
editor that seems to have such a hard job, that 
us members of Sodality take a hold of his paper 
for a day and get it out for him and put some 
news in it, and sell it to everybody, subscribers 
and all, that one night, for ten cents.' 

"Mis' Silas Sykes looks up and stopped 
winking and breathing, in a way she has when 
she sights some distant money for Sodality. 

"^Land, land,' she says, ^I bet they'd go like 
hot cakes.' 

But Silas he snorts, scorching. 
^Will you ladies tell me,' he says, * where 
you going to get your news to put in your paper ? 
The Fourth don't come along every day. Or 
less you commit murder and arson and run- 






id 



MOTHERS TO MEN 133 

aways, there won't be any more in your paper 
than they is in its editor's/ 

"That hit a tender town-point, and I couldn't 
stand it no longer. I spoke right up. 

"*0h, I donno, I donno, Silas/ I says. ^They's 
those in this town that's doin' the murderin' 
for us, neat an' nice, right along,' I told him. 
Mean to say ?' snapped Silas. 
Mean to say,' says I, *most every grocery 
store in this town an' most every milkman an' 
the meat market as well is doin' their best to 
drag the health out o' people's systems for 'em. 
Us ladies is more or less well read an' knowl- 
edgeable of what is goin' on in the world outside,' 
I says to Silas that ain't, *an' we know a thing 
or two about what ought to be clean.' 

"Since Insley come, we had talked a good 
deal more about these things and what was 
and what shouldn't be; and especially we had 
talked it in Sodality, on account of our town 
stores and social ways and such being so in- 
viting to disease and death. But we hadn't 
talked it official, 'count of Sodality being for 
Cemetery use, and talking it scattering we 
hadn't been able to make the other men even 
listen to us. 

"*Pack o' women !' says Silas, now, and went 
off to find black molasses for somebody. 



134 MOTHERS TOYMEN 






Mis' Toplady sampled her butter, dreamy. 
^Rob Henny's butter here/ she says, Ms 
made out of cow sheds that I can't bear to think 
about. An' Silas knows it. Honest,' she says, 
*I'm gettin' so I spleen against the flowers in 
the fields for fear Rob Henny's cows'U get holt 
of 'em. I should think the Daily could write 
about that.' 

"I remember how us three women looked 
at each other then, like our brains was experi- 
menting with our ideas. And when Mis' Top- 
lady got her butter, we slipped out and spoke 
together for a few minutes up past the Town 
Pump* And it was there the plan come to a 
head and legs and arms. And we see that we 
had a way of picking purses right off of every 
day, so be the editor would leave us go ahead 
— and of doing other things. 

"The very next morning we three went to 
see the editor and get his consent. 

"* What's your circulation, same as City papers 
print to the top of the page?' Mis' Toplady 
asks him, practical. 

"^Paid circulation or got-out circulation?' 
says the editor. 

"^Paid,' says Mis' Toplady, in silver-dollar 
tones. 

"^Ah, well, paid for or subscribed for ?' asks 
the editor. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 13s 

"'Paid for/ says Mis' Toplady, still more 
financial. 

" ^ Six hundred and eighty paid for/ the editor 
says, *an' fifty-two that — mean to pay/ 

"'My!' says Mis' Toplady, shuddering, 
'What business is ! Well, us ladies of the 
Sodality want to run your paper for one day 
and charge all your subscribers ten cents extra 
for that day's paper. Will you ? ' 

"The editor, he laughed quite a little, and 
then he looked thoughtful. He was new and 
from the City and young and real nervous — 
he used to pop onto his feet whenever a woman 
so much as come in the room. 

"'Who would collect the ten cents ?' says he. 

"'Sodality,' says Mis' Toplady, firm. 'Our- 
self, cash an' in advanced 

"The editor nodded, still smiling. 

"'Jove,' he said, 'this fits in remarkably well 
with the fishing I've been thinking about. 
I copfess I need a day. I suppose you wouldn't 
want to do it this week ? ' 

"Mis' Toplady looked at me with her eye- 
brows. But I nodded. I always rather hurry 
up than not. 

"'So be we had a couple o' hours to get the 
news to happenin',' says she, 'that had ought 
to do us.' 



136 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"The editor l(X)ked startled. 

" 'News !' said he. 'Oh, I say now, you mustn't 
expect too much. I ought to warn you that 
running a paper in this town is like trying to 
raise cream on a cistern.' 

"Mis' Toplady smiled at him motherly. 

"'You ain't ever tried pouring the cream 
into the cistern, I guess,' she says. 

"So we settled it into a bargain, except that, 
after we had planned it all out with him and 
just as we was going out the door. Mis' Toplady 
thought to say to him : — 

"'You know. Sodality don't know anything 
about it yet, so you'd best not mention it out 
around till this afternoon when we vote to do it. 
We'll be up at eight o'clock Thursday morning, 
rain or shine.' 

"There wasn't ever any doubt about Sodality 
when it see Sixty Dollars ahead — which we 
would get if everybody bought a paper, and we 
was determined that everybody should buy. 
Sodality members scraps among themselves 
personal, but when it comes to raising money 
we unite yoke to yoke, and all differences for- 
got. It's funny sometimes at the meetings, 
funny and disgraceful, to hear how we object 
to each other, especially when we're tired, and 
then how we all unite together on something for 



MOTHERS TO MEN 137 

the good of the town. I tell you, it makes me 
feel sometimes that the way ain't so much to 
try to love each other, — which other folks' 
peculiarities is awful in the way of, — but for 
us all to pitch in and love something altogether, 
your town or your young folks, or your 
cemetery or keeping something clean or making 
somethin' look nice — and before you know it 
you're loving the folks you work with, no matter 
how peculiar, or even more so. It's been so 
nice since we've been working for Cemetery. 
Folks that make each other mad every time 
they try to talk can sell side by side at; the 
same bazaar and count the money mutual. 
There's quite a few disagreements in Sodality, 
so we have to be real careful who sets next to 
who to church suppers. But when we pitch 
in to work for something, we sew rags and 
'scallop oysters in the same pan with our en- 
emies. Don't it seem as if that must mean 
something ? Something big ? 

"Sodality voted to publish the paper, all 
right, and elected the officers for the day: 
Editor, Mis' Postmaster Sykes, 'count of her 
always expecting to take the lead in everything ; 
assistant editor, me, 'count of being well and 
able to work like a dog ; business manager and 
circulation man, Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame- 



138 MOTHERS TO MEN 

Bliss, 'count of no dime ever getting away 
from her unexpected. And the reporters was 
to be most of the rest of the Sodality: Mis' 
Timothy Toplady, the three Liberty girls, 
Mis' Mayor Uppers, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, 
Mis' Threat Hubbelthwait, an' Abagail Arnold, 
that keeps the home bakery. It was hard for 
Abagail to get away from her cook stove and her 
counter, so we fixed it that she was to be let 
off any other literary work along of her furnish- 
ing us our sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs 
that day noon. It was quite a little for Abagail 
to do, but she's always real willing, and we 
didn't ask coffee of her. Mis' Sturgis, her 
that is the village invalid, we arranged should 
have charge of the Woman's Column, and bring 
down her rocking chair and make her beef 
broth right there on the office wood-stove. 

^*I guess we was all glad to go down early 
in the morning that day, 'count of not meeting 
the men. One and all and with one voice the 
Friendship men had railed at us hearty. 

" * Pack o' women ! ' says Silas Sykes, over 
and over. 

"*You act like bein' a woman an' a wife 
was some kind o' nonsense,' says Mis' Sykes 
back at him, majestic, ^Well, I guess bein' 
yours is/ \ 



MOTHERS TO MEN 139 

"*Land, Amandy/ says Timothy Toplady, 
^you women earn money so nervous. Why 
don't you do it regular an' manly ? ' 

"Only Eppleby Holcomb had kept his si- 
lence. Eppleby sees things that the run of 
men don't see, or, if they did see them, they 
would be bound to stick them in their ledgers 
where they would never, never belong. Eppleby 
was our friend, and Sodality never had truer. 

"So though we went ahead, the men had 
made us real anxious. And most of us slipped 
down to the office by half past s6ven so's not 
to meet tpo many. The editor had had a 
column in the paper about what we was goin' 
to do — * Loyal to our IjocslI Dead' he headed 
it, and of course full half the town was kicking 
at the extra ten cents, like full half of any town 
can and will kick when it's asked to pay out 
for its own good, dead or alive. But we was 
leaving all that to Mis' Holcomb, that knows 
a thing or two about the human in us, and 
similar. 

"Extra-paper morning, when we all come in. 
Mis' Sykes she was sitting at the editor's desk 
with her big apron on and a green shade to 
cover up her crimping kids, and her list that her 
and Mis' Toplady and I had made out, in front 
of hen . . 



I40 MOTHERS TO MEN 



iC 



*Now then, let's get right to work,' she says 
brisk. *We ain't any too much time, I can tell 
you. It ain't like bakin' bread or gettin' the 
vegetables ready. We've all got to use muscles 
this day we ain't used to usin',' she says, *an' 
we'd best be spry.' 

^'So then she begun giving out who was to 
do what — assignments, the editor named it 
when he told us what to do. And I skipped 
back an' hung over the files, well knowing what 
was to come. 

"Mis' Sykes stood up in her most society 
way, an' — 

"^Anybody want to back out?' says she, 
gracious. 

"^Land!' says everyone in a No-I-don't 
tone. 

"'Very well,' says Mis' Sykes. 'Mis' Top- 
lady, you go out to Rob Henney's place, an' 
you go through his cow sheds from one end 
to the other an' take down notes so's he sees 
you doin' it. You go into his kitchen an' don't 
you let a can get by you. Open his churn. 
Rub your finger round the inside of his pans. 
An' if he won't tell you, the neighbours will. 
Explain to him you're goin' to give him a nice, 
full printed description in to-night's Daily, 
just the way things are. If he wants it changed 



■>i 



MOTHERS TO MEN 141 

any, he can clean all up, an' we'll write up the 
clean-up like a compliment.' 

"Just for one second them assembled women 
was dumb. But it hardly took them that 
instant to sense what was what. And all of a 
sudden, Mame Holcomb, I guess it was, bursted 
out in a little understanding giggle, and after 
a minute everybody joined in, too. For we'd 
got the whole world of Friendship Village where 
we wanted it, and every one of them women see 
we had, so be we wasn't scared. 

"^Mis' Uppers,' Mis' Sykes was going on, 
*you go down to Betts's meat market. You 
poke right through into the back room. An' 
you tell Joe Betts that you're goin' to do a 
write-up of that room an' the alley back of it 
for the paper to-night, showin' just what's 
what. If so be he wants to turn in an' red it 
up this mornin', tell him you'll wait till noon 
an' describe it then, providin^ he keeps it that 
way. An' you might let him know you're 
goin' to run over to his slaughterhouse an' 
look around while you're waitin', an' put that 
in your write-up, too.' 

"'Miss Hubbelthwait,' Mis' Sykes went 
on, * you go over to the Calaboose. They won't 
anybody be in the office — Dick's saloon is that. 
Skip right through in the back part, an' turn 



^~ 



142 MOTHERS TO MEN 

down the blankets on both beds an' give a 
thorough look. If it's true they's no sheets 
an' pillow-cases on the calaboose beds, an' that 
the blankets is only washed three times a year 
so's to save launderin', we can make a real 
interestin' column about that.' 

"'Miss Merriman,' says Mis' Sykes to Mis' 
Fire Chief, 'I've give you a real hard thing 
because you do things so delicate. Will you 
take a walk along the residence part of town an' 
go into every house an' ask 'em to let you see 
their back door an' their garbage pail. Tell 
'em you're goin' to write a couple of columns on 
how folks manage this. Ask 'em their idees 
on the best way. Give 'em to understand if 
there's a real good way they're thinkin' of tryin' 
that you'll put that in, providin' they begin 
tryin' right off. An' tell 'em they can get it 
carted off for ten cents a week if enough go 
in on it. An' be your most delicate^ Mis' 
Fire Chief, for we don't want to offend a 
soul.' 

"Libby an' Viney Liberty Mis' Sykes sent 
round to take a straw vote in every business 
house in town to see how much they'd give 
towards starting a shelf library in the corner 
of the post-office store, a full list to be printed 
in order with the amount or else *Not a cent' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 143 

after each name. And the rest of Sodality 
she give urrants similar or even more so. 

"*An' all o' you,' says Mis' Sykes, *pick up 
what you can on the way. And if anybody 
starts in to object, you tell 'em you have in- 
structions to make an interview out of any of 
the interestin' things they say. And you might 
tell 'em you don't want they should be buried 
in a nice cemetery if they don't want to be.' 

"Well, sir, they started off — some scairt, 
but some real brave, too. And the way they 
went, we see every one of them meant business. 

"^But oh,' says Mis' Sturgis, fixing her medi- 
cine bottles outside on the window-sill, ^sup- 
posirC they can't do it. Supposin^ folks ain't 
nice to 'em. What'U we put in the paper 
then ?' 

"Mis' Sykes drew herself up like she does 
sometimes in society. 

"/Well,' she says, *supposin'. Are we runnin' 
this paper or ain't we ? There's nothin' to pre- 
vent our writin' editorials about these things, 
as I see. Our husbands can't very well sue us 
for libel, because they'd hev to pay it themselves. 
Nor they can't put us in prison for debt, be- 
cause who'd get their three meals ? I can't see 
but we're sure of an interestin' paper, anyway.' 

"Then she looked over at me sort of sad. 



144 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"^Go on, Calliope/ says she, *you know what 
youVe got to do. Do it,' she says, *to the 
bitter end.' 

"I knew, and I started out, and I made 
straight for Silas Sykes, and the post-office 
store. Silas wan't in the store, it was so early ; 
but he had the floor all sprinkled nice, and the 
vegetables set out, all uncovered, close to the 
sidewalk ; and everything real tasty and accord- 
ing to grocery-store etiquette. The boy was 
gone that day. And Silas himself was in the 
back room, sortin' over prunes. 

Hello, Calliope,' s'he. ^ How's literchoor ?' 
Honest as ever,' I says. *Same with food ?' 
Who says I ain't honest ?' says Silas, 
straightening up, an' holding all his fingers 
stiff 'count of being sticky. 

"*Why, I donno who,' says I. *Had anybody 
ought to ? How's business, Silas ? ' 

"'Well,' says he, 'for us that keeps ourselves 
up with the modern business methods, it's 
pretty good, I guess.' 

"'Do you mean pretty good, Silas, or do you 
mean pretty paying ? ' I ask' him. 

"Silas put on his best official manner. 'Look 
at here,' s'e, 'what can I do for you ? Did 
you want to buy somethin' or did you want your 
mail ?' 



id 



MOTHERS TO MEN 145 



<cc 



Oh, neither,' I says. *I want some help 
from you, Silas, about the paper to-day.' 

"My, that give Silas a nice minute. He 
fairly weltered in satisfaction. 

"*Huh,' he says, elegant, Midn't I tell you 
you was bitin' off more'n you could chew ? 
Want some assistance from me, do you, in 
editin' this paper o' yours ? Well, I suppose I 
can help you out a little. What is it you want 
me to do for you ? ' 

"^We thought we'd like to write you up,' 
I told him. 

"Silas just swelled. For a man in public 
office, Silas Sykes feels about as presidential 
as anybody I ever see. If they was to come out 
from the City and put him on the front page 
of the morning paper, he's the kind that would 
wonder why they hadn't done it before. 

"^Sketch of my life?' s'e, genial. ^Little 
outline of my boyhood ? Main points in my 
career ? ' 

"*Well,' I says, *no. We thought the pres- 
ent'd be about all we'd hev room for. We want 
to write up your business, Silas,' I says, *in 
an advertising way.' 

"*Oh !' says Silas, snappy. *You want me to 
pay to be wrote up, is that it ? ' 

Well,' I says, *no ; not if you don't want to, 

L 



«< 



146 MOTHERS TO MEN 

Of course everybody'll be buried in the Ceme- 
tery whether they give anything towards the 
fund for keeping it kep' up or not/ 

"*Lord Heavens/ says Silas, ^Fve had that 
Cemetery fund rammed down my throat till 
I'm sick o' the thought o' dyin'.' 

"That almost made me mad, seeing we was 
having the disadvantage of doing the work and 
Silas going to get all the advantages of burial. 

"^Feel the same way about some of the Ten 
Commandments, don't you, Silas ?' I says, 
before I knew it. 

"Silas just rared. 

"*The Ten Commandments!' says he, *the 
Ten Commandments ! Who can show me one 
I ain't a-keepin' like an old sheep. Didn't 
I honour my father an' mother as long as I had 
'em ? Did they ever buy anything of me at 
more than cost ? Didn't I give 'em new clothes 
an' send 'em boxes of oranges an' keep up their 
life insurance ? Do I ever come down to the 
store on the Sabbath Day ? Do I ever distrib- 
ute the mail then, even if I'm expectin' a 
letter myself ? The Sabbath I locked the cat 
in, didn't I send the boy down to let it out, for 
fear I'd be misjudged if I done it ? Wha do I 
ever bear false witness against unless I know 
they've done what I say they've done ? I 



MOTHERS TO MEN 147 

can't kill a fly — an' Fm that tender-hearted 
that I make the hired girl take the mice out o' 
the trap because I can't bring myself to do it. 
So you might go through the whole list an' 
just find me workin' at 'em an' a-keepin' 'em. 
What do you mean about the Ten Command- 
ments ? ' he ends up, ready to burst. 

"^Don't ask me,' I says. *I ain't that fa- 
miliar with 'em. I didn't know anybody was. 
Go on about 'em. Take stealing — you hadn't 
got to that one.' 

'^'Stealingy says Silas, pompous. *I don't 
know what it is.' 

And with that I was up on my feet. 
I thought you didn't,' says I. ^Us ladies of 
Sodality have all thought it over an' over 
again: That you don't know stealing when 
you see it. No, nor not even when you've 
done it. Come here, Silas Sykes !' I says. 

"I whipped by him into the store, and he 
followed me, sheer through being dazed, and 
keeping still through being knocked dumb. 

"*Look here,' I says, ^here's your counter of 
bakery stuff — put in to take from Abagail, 
but no matter about that now. Where do you 
get it ? From the City, with the label stuck on. 
What's the bakery like where you buy it ? 
It's under a sidewalk and dust dirty, and I 



Hi 



148 MOTHERS TO MEN 

happen to know you know it. And look at the 
bread — not a thing over it, flies promenadin' 
on the crust, and you counting out change on 
an apple-pie the other day — I see you do it. 
Look at your dates, all uncovered and dirt 
from the street sticking to them like the pattern. 
Look at your fly-paper, hugged up against your 
dried-fruit box that's standing wide open. Look 
at you keeping fish and preserved fruit and 
canned stuff that you know is against the law 
— going to start keeping the law quick as you 
get these sold out, ain't you, Silas ? Look at 
your stuff out there in front, full of street dirt 
and flies and ready to feed folks. And you 
keepin' the Ten Commandments like an old 
sheep — and being a church elder, and you 
might better climb porches and bust open 
safes. I s'pose you wonder what Fm sayin' 
all this to you for ? ' 

"^No, ma'am,' says Silas, like the edge o' 
something, *I don't wonder at your sayin' 
anything to anybody.' 

"^I've got more to say,' I says, dry. 'I've 
only give you a sample. An' the place I'm 
goin' to say it is The Friendship Village Even- 
ing Daily, Extra, to-night, in a descriptive 
write-up of you and your store. I thought it 
might interest you to knov/.' 



\ 



66 
66 



MOTHERS TO MEN 149 

" * It's libel — It's libel ! ' says Silas, arms 
waving. 

"*A11 right,' says I, liberating a fly accident- 
ally caught on a date. * Who you going to sue ? 
Your wife, that's the editor ? And everybody 
else's wife, that's doing the same thing to every 
behind-the-times dealer in town ? ' 
Silas hung on to that straw. 
* Be they doin' it to the others, too ? ' he 
asks. 

"Then I told him. 

"*Yes,' I says, * Silas, only — they ain't goin' 
to start writing up the descriptions till noon. 
And if you — and they all — want to clean 
up the temples where you do business and make 
them fit for the Lord to look down on and a 
human being to come into, you've got your 
chance. And seeing your boy is gone to-day, 
if you'll do it, I'll stay and help you with it — 
and mebbe make room for some of the main 
points in your career as well,' says I, sly. 

"Silas looked out the door, his arms folded 
and his beard almost pointing up, he'd made his 
chin so firm. And just in that minute when I 
was feeling that all the law and the prophets, 
and the health of Friendship Village, and the 
life of people not born. Was hanging around that 
man's neck — or the principle of them, any- 



I50 MOTHERS TO MEN 

way — Silas's eye and mine fell on a strange 
sight. Across the street, from out Joe Betts's 
meat market come Joe Betts, and behind him 
his boy. And Joe begun pointing, and the boy 
begun taking down quarters of beef hung over 
the sidewalk. Joe pointed consid'able. And 
then he dim' up on his meat wagon that stood 
by the door, and out of the shop I see Mis' 
Mayor Uppers come, looking ready to drop. 
And she dim' up to the seat beside him — he 
reaching down real gentlemanly to help her up. 
And he headed his horse around on what I 
guessed was a bee-line for the slaughterhouse. 

"Well, sir, at that, Silas Sykes put his hands 
on his knees and bent over and begun laughing. 
And he laughed like I ain't seen him since he's 
got old and begun to believe that life ain't 
cut after his own plan that he made. And I 
laughed a little, too, out of sheer being glad , 
that ^ laugh can settle so many things right 
in the world. And when he sobered down a 
little, I says gentle : — 

" * Silas, I'll throw out the dates and the dusty 
lettuce. And we'll hev it done in no time. 
I'll be glad to get an early start on the write-up. 
I don't compose very ready,' I told him. 

"He was awful funny while we done the work. 
He was awful still, too. Once when I lit on a 



MOTHERS TO MEN 151 

< 

piece of salt pork that I knew, first look, was 
rusty, ^Thern folks down on the flats buys it,' 
he says. ^They like it just as good as new- 
killed/ *A11 right,' s'l, careless, ^I'U make a 
note of that to shine in my article. It needs 
humour some,' s'L Then Silas swore, soft and 
under his breath, as an elder should, but quite 
vital. And he took the pork out to the alley 
barrel, an' I sprinkled ashes on it so's he shouldn't 
slip out and save it afterwards. 

"It was 'leven o'clock when we got done, me 
having swept out behind the counters myself, 
and Silas he mopped his face and stood hauling 
at his collar. 

"*I'll get on my white kids now,' s'e, dry. *I 
can't go pourin' kerosene an' slicin' cheese 
in this place barehanded any more. Gosh,' 
he says, *I bet when they see it, they'll want 
to have church in here this comin' Sunday.' 

"^No need to be sacrilegious, as I know of, 
Silas,' s'l, sharp. 

"*No need to be livin' at all, as I see,' says 
Silas, morbid; *just lay low an' other folks'U 
«tep in an' do it for you, real capable.' - 

"I give him the last word. I thought it 
was his man's due. 

"When I got back to the ofiice, Libby Lib- 
erty an' Mis' Toplady was there before me. 



152 MOTHERS TO MEN 

They was both setting on high stools up to the 
file shelf, with their feet tucked up, an' the 
reason was that Viney Liberty was mopping 
the floor. She had a big pail of suds and her 
skirt pinned up, and she was just lathering 
them boards. Mis' Sykes at the main desk 
was still labouring over her editorials, breathing 
hard, the boards steaming soap all around her. 

"^I couldn't stand it,' Viney says. *How a 
man can mould public opinion in a place where 
the floor is pot-black gets me. My land, my 
ash house is a dinin' room side of this room, an' 
the window was a regular gray frost with dust. 
Ain't men the funniest lot of folks ?' she says. 

"* Funny,' says I, *but awful amiable if you 
kind of sing their key-note to 'em.' 

"Mis' Sykes pulled my skirt. 

"^How was he ?' she asks in a pale voice. 

"*He was crusty,' says I, triumphant, *but 
he's beat.' 

"She never smiled. * Calliope Marsh,' says 
she, cold, *if you've sassed my husband, I'll 
never forgive you.' 

"I tell you, men may be some funny, and 
often are. But women is odd as Dick's hatband 
and I don't know but odder. 

"*How'd you get on ?' I says to Mis' Toplady 
and the Libertys. The Libertys they handed 



MOTHERS TO MEN 153 

out a list on two sheets, both sides with sums 
ranging from ten to fifty cents towards a shelf 
library for public use; but Mis' Toplady, the 
tears was near streaming down her cheeks. 

"^Rob Henney/ she says, mournful, ^ gimme 
to understand he'd see me in — some place he 
hadn't ought to of spoke of to me, nor to no 
one — before I could get in his milk sheds.' 

"^What did you say to him?' I ask', sym- 
pathetic. 

"'I t-told him,' says Mis' Toplady, 'that 
lookin' for me wouldn't be the only reason he'd 
hev for goin' there. And then he said some 
more. He said he'd be in here this afternoon 
to stop his subscription off.' 

"'So you didn't get a thing ?' I says, grieving 
for her, but Mis' Toplady, she bridled through 
her tears. 

"'I got a column!' she flashed out. 'I put 
in about the sheds, that the whole town knows, 
anyway, an' I put in what he said to me. An' 
I'm goin' to read it to him when he comes in. 
An' after that he can take his pick about havin' 
it published, or else cleanin' up an' allowin' 
Sodality to inspect him reg'lar.' 

"By just before twelve o'clock we was all 
back in the office. Mis' Fire Chief, Mis' Uppers, 
fresh from the slaughterhouse, and so on, all 



154 MOTHERS TO MEN 

but Mame Holcomb that was out seeing to 
the circulation. And I tell you we set to work 
in earnest, some of us to the desks, and some 
of us working on their laps, and everybody 
hurrying hectic. The oiHce was awful hot — 
Mis' Sturgis had built up a little light fire to 
heat up her beef broth, and she was stirring it, 
her shawl folded about her, in between writing 
receipts. But it made it real confusing, all of 
us doing our best so hard, and wanting to tell 
each other what had happened, and seeing about 
spelling and all. 

"'Land, land,' says Mis' Fire Chief Merri- 
man, * you'd ought to see the Carters' back door. 
They wan't nobody to home there, so I just 
took a look, anyway, bein' it was for Sodality, 
so. They ain't no real garbage pail — ' 

"'Who said, "Give me Liberty or give me 
Death ?'" ask' Mis' Sykes, looking up kind o' 
glassy. 'Was it Daniel Webster or Daniel 
Boone ? ' 

"'Ladies,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, when 
we'd settled down on Daniel Boone, 'if I ever 
do a crime, I won't stop short at stealin' some- 
body's cow an' goin' to calaboose. I'll do a 
whole beef corner, or some real United States 
sin, an' get put in a place that's clean. Why 
over to the calaboose — ^ 



MOTHERS TO MEN , 155 

**^Ugh !' says Mis' Uppers, Mon't say "beef" 
when Fm where I can hear. I donno what FU 
do without my steak, but do it I will. Ladies, 
the cleanest of us is soundin* brass an' tinklin' 
cannibals. 'Why do they call 'em tinklirC can- 
nibals ?' she wondered to us all. 

"^Oh — ,' wailed Mis' Sturgis in the rofcking- 
chair, 'some of you ladies give me your salad 
dressing receipt. Mine is real good on salad, 
but on paper it don't sound fit to eat. I don't 
seem to have no book-style about me to-day.' 

"'How do you spell embarrass?^ asked Libby 
Liberty. 'Is it an r an' two ^'s or two r's and 
an s ?' 

"'It's two j's at the end, so it must be one 
r,' volunteers Mis' Sykes. 'That used to mix 
me up some, too.' 

"Just then up come Abagail Arnold bring- 
ing the noon lunch, and she had the sandwiches 
and the eggs not only, but a pot of hot coffee 
thrown in, and a basket of doughnuts, sugared. 
She set them out on Mis' Sykes's desk, and we 
all laid down our pencils and drew up on our 
high stools and swing chairs. Mis' Sturgis and 
all, and nothing in the line of food had ever 
looked so welcoming. 

"'Oh, the eatableness of nice refreshments!' 
says Mis' Toplady, sighing. 



iS6 MOTHERS TO MEN 



iiii 



This is when it ain't victuals, its viands/ 
says Mis' Sykes, showing pleased. 

"But well do I remember, we wasn't started 
to eat, and Abagail still doing the pouring, 
when the composing room door opened — I 
donno why they called it that, for we done the 
composing in the oiHce, and they only got out 
the paper in there — and in come the foreman, 
with an apron of bed-ticking. He was Riddy 
Styles, that we all knew him. 

"^Excuse me,' he says, hesitating, *but us 
fellows thought we'd ought to mention that we 
can't get no paper out by quittin' time if we 
don't get a-hold of some copy pretty quick.' 
Copy o' what ?' says Mis' Sykes, our editor. 
Why, copy,' says Riddy. *StuiF for the 
paper.' 

Mis' Sykes looked at him, majestic. 
^ Stuff, ' she says. * You will please to speak,' 
she says, *more respectfully than that to 
us ladies, Mr. Styles.' 

"^It was meant right,' says Riddy, stubborn. 
*It's the word we always use.' 

"*It ain't the word you use, not with us,' 
says Mis' Sykes, womanly. 

"'Well,' says Riddy, 'we'd ought to get to 
settin' up somethin^ by half past twelve, if 
we start in on the dictionary.' 



Hi 

lit 



ii 

iC 



MOTHERS TO MEN 157 

"Then he went off to his dinner, and the 
other men with him, and Mis' Sykes leaned 
back limp. 

"^I been writin' steady,' she says, ^ since half 
past eight o' clock this mornin', an' I've only 
got one page an' one-half composed.' 

"We ask' each other around, and none of 
us was no more then started, let be it was Mis' 
Toplady, that had got in first. 

"*Le's us leave our lunch,' says Mis' Sykes, 
then. *Le's us leave it un-et. Abagail, you 
put it back in the basket an' pour the coffee 
into the pot. An' le's us write. Wouldn't we 
all rather hev one of our sick headaches,' she 
says, firm, Hhan mebbe make ourselves the 
Laughing Stock ? Ladies, I ask you.' 

"An' we woulded, one and all. Sick head- 
aches don't last long, but laughed-at has regular 
right down eternal life. 

"Ain't it strange how slow the writing mus- 
cles and such is, that you don't use often ? 
Pitting cherries, splitting squash, peeling po- 
tatoes, slicing apples, making change at church 
suppers, — us ladies is lightning at 'em all. But 
getting idees down on paper — I declare if it ain't 
more like waiting around for your bread to raise 
on a cold morning. Still when you're worried, 
you can press forward more than normal, and 



iS8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

among us we had quite some material ready for 
Riddy and the men when they came back. But 
not Mis' Sykes. She wan't getting on at all. 

"*If I could only talk it/ she says, grieving, 
*or I donno if I could even do that. What I 
want to say is in me, rarin' around my head like 
life, an' yet I can't get it out no more'n money 
out of a tin bank. I shall disgrace Sodality,' 
she says, wild. 

"'Cheer up,' says Libby Liberty, soothing. 
* Nobody ever reads the editorials, anyway. I 
ain't read one in years.' 

* You tend to your article,' snaps Mis' Sykes. 
I had got my write-up of Silas all turned in 
to Riddy, and I was looking longing at Abagail's 
basket, when, banging the door, in come some- 
body breathing like raging, and it was Rob 
Henney, that I guess we'd all forgot about ex- 
cept it was Mis' Toplady that was waiting for 
him. 

"Rob Henney always talks like he was long 
distance. 

"*I come in,' he says, blustering, *I come in 
to quit off my subscription to this fool paper, 
that a lot o' fool women — ' 

"Mis' Sykes looks up at him out from under 
her hand that her head was resting on. 

*Go on out o' here, Mr. Henney,' she says 



« 



« 






MOTHERS TO MEN 159 

sharp to him, *an' quit your subscription quiet. 
Can't you see you're disturbing us ? ' she says. 

"With that Mis' Toplady wheeled around 
on her high stool and looked at him, calm as a 
clock. 

" ^Rob Henney,' says she, *you come over here. 
I'll read you what I've wrote about you,' she 
told him. 

The piece begun like this : — 
Rob Henney, our esteemed fellow-townsman 
and milkman, was talked with this morning 
on his cow sheds. The reporter said to same 
that what was wanting would be visiting the 
stables, churn, cans, pans, and like that, being 
death is milked out of most cows if they are not 
kept clean and inspected regular for signs of 
consumption. Mr. Henney replied as follows: 

"^ First: That his cows had never been in- 
spected because nothing of that kind had ever 
been necessary. 

"'Second: That he was in the milk business 
for a living, and did the town expect him to keep 
it in milk for its health ? 

"*Third: That folks had been drinking milk 
since milk begun, and if the Lord saw fit ]to call 
them home, why not through milk, or even 
through consumption, as well as through pneu- 
monia and others ? 



i6o MOTHERS TO MEN 

"'Fourth: That he would see the reporter 
— a lady — in the lake-that-bumeth-with-fire 
before his sheds and churn and pans and cans 
should be put in the paper. 

"* Below is how the sheds, churn, pans, and 
cans look to-day. . . .' And I tell you. Mis' 
Toplady, she didn't spare no words. When 
she meant What, she said What, elaborate. 

"I didn't know for a minute but we'd hev to 
mop Rob up off the clean floor. But Mis' 
Toplady she never forgot who she was. 

"* Either that goes in the paper to-night,' 
she says, *or you'll clean up your milk sur- 
roundin's — pick your choice. An' Sodality's 
through with you if you don't, besides.' 

" ^ Put it in print ! Put it in print, if you 
dast!' yells Rob, wind-milling his arms some. 

"*No need to make an earthquake o' your- 
self,' Mis' Toplady points out to him, serene. 

"And at that Rob adds a word intending to 
express a cussing idee, and he outs and down the 
stairs. And Mis' Toplady starts to take her ar- 
ticle right in to Riddy. But in the door she met 
Riddy, hurrying into the office again. T never 
see anybody before that looked both red and 
haggard, but Riddy did. He come right to the 
point : — 

" * Some of you ladies has got to quit handing 



MOTHERS TO MEN i6i 

in — news,' he says, scrabbling for a word to 
please Mis' Sykes. * We're up to our eyes in 
here now. An' there ain't enough room in the 
paper, either, not without you get out eight pages 
or else run a supplement or else throw away the 
whole patent inside. An' those ways, we ain't 
got enough type even if we had time to burn.' 

"Mis' Sykes pushed back her green shade, 
looking just chased. 

"*What does he mean ?' she says. * Can't he 
tend to his type and things with us doing all the 
work ? ' 

Riddy took this real nettlish. 
I mean,' s'he, clear but brutal, *you got 
to cut your stuflF somewheres to the tune of a 
couple o' columns.' 

"Well, it's hard to pick out which colour you'll 
take when you have a new dress only once in 
every so seldom ; or which of your hens you'll 
kill when you know your chickens like you 
know your own mind; but these are nothing 
to the time we had deciding on what to 
omit out of the paper that night. And the 
decision hurt us even more than the deciding, 
for what we left out was Mis' Sturgis's two 
women's columns, 

"*We canH leave out meat nor milk nor clean- 
liness nor th* library,' says Mis' Toplady, reason- 



ed 






162 MOTHERS TO MEN 

able, * because them are the things we live by. 
An' so with the other write-ups we got planned. 
But receipts and patterns an' moth balls is only 
kind o' decorations, seems though. Besides, we 
all know about 'em, an' it's time we stopped 
talkin' about 'em, anyway.' 

"Mis' Sturgis she cried a little on the comer of 
her shawl. 

"*The receipts an' patterns an' moth balls is 
so w-womanly,' she says. 

Mis' Toi)lady whirled round at her. 
If you know anything more womanly than 
conquerin' dirt an' disease an' the-dead-that- 
needn't-die,' s'she, ^I'U roll up my sleeves an' 
be into it. But it won't be eyelet embroidery nor 
yet boiled frost in' ! ' 

"After that they wrote in hasty peace, though 
four o'clock come racing across the day like a 
runaway horse, and us not out of its way. And 
a few minutes past, when Riddy was waiting in 
the door for Mis' Sykes's last page, somebody 
most knocked him over, and there come Mis' 
Holcomb, our circulation editor, purple and 
white, like a ghost. 

"*Lock the door — lock it ! ' she says. *I've 
bolted the one to the foot of the stairs. Lock 
both outside ones an' lay yourselves low ! ' s'she. 

" Riddy an' I done the locking, mte well know- 



MOTHERS TO MEN 163 

ing Mis' Holcomb couldn't give a false alarm 
no more than a map could. 

" * What is it ? ' we says, pressing Mis' Hol- 
comb to speak, that couldn't even breathe. 

"*0h, ladies,' says Mis' Holcomb, they've 
rejoined us, or whatever it is they do. I mean 
they're going to rejoin us from gettin' out 
to-night's paper. The sheriff or the coroner 
or whoever it is they have, is comin' with in- 
junctions — is that like handcuffs, do you 
know ? An' it's Rob Henney's doin'. Eppleby 
told me. An' I run down the alley an' beat 'em 
to it. They're most here. Let's us slap into 
print what's wrote an' be ready with the papers 
the livin' minute we can.' 

"Mis' Sykes had shoved her green shade onto 
the back of her head, and her crimping pins was 
all showing forth. 

"^What good'll it do us to get the paper out?^ 
says she, in a numb voice. * We can't distribute 
'em around to no one with the sheriff to the 
front door with them things to put on us.' 

"Then Mis' Holcomb smiled, with her eyes 
shut, where she sat, breathing so hard it showed 
through. 

"*I come in the coal door, at the alley,' s' she. 
* They'll never think o' that. Besides, the 
crowd'U be in front an' the carrier boys too, an' 



i64 MOTHERS TO MEN 

they'll want to show off out there. An' Eppleby 
knows — he told me to come in that way — an' 
he'll keep 'em interested out in front. Le's 
us each take the papers, an' out the coal door, 
an' distribute 'em around, ourselves, without 
the boys, an' collect in the money same time.' 

"And that was how we done. For when 
they come to the door and found it locked, they 
pounded a little to show who was who and who 
wan't and then they waited out there calm 
enough, thinking to stop us when the papers 
come down would be plenty time. They waited 
out there, calm and sure, while upstairs Bedlam 
went on, but noiseless. And after us ladies was 
done with our part, we sat huddled up in the 
office, soothing Mis' Sturgis and each other. 

"*In one sentence,' Mis' Holcomb says, * Ep- 
pleby says Rob Henney was going to put in- 
junctions on us. An' in the next he says he was 
goin' to serve 'em. What did he mean by that, 
do you s'pose ? ' 

" * I donno what he meant,' says Mis' Toplady, 
*but I wouldn't have anything to do with any- 
thing Rob Henney served.' 

"That made us think of Abagail's lunch, 
laying un-et in the basket. They wasn't none 
of us felt like eating, but Mis' Sturgis says she 
bet if we didn't eat it, Abagail would feel she 



MOTHERS TO MEN 165 

hadn't had no part in writing the paper like us, 
and so we broke off a little something once 
around ; but food didn't have much fun for us, 
not then. And nothing did up to the minute 
the paper was done, and we was all ready to sly 
out the alley door. 

"With Sodality and Riddy Styles and the 
composing-room men we had above twenty 
carriers. Riddy and the men helped us, one 
and all, because of course the paper was a little 
theirs, too, and they was interested and liked 
the lark. Land, land, I ain't felt so young or 
so wicked as I done getting out that alley door. 
There's them I wish could see that there's just 
as much fun keeping secret about something 
that may be good as in being sly about something 
regular bad. 

"When we finally got outside it was supper- 
time and summer seeming, and the hour was all 
sweet and frank, and the whole village was buried 
in its evening fried mush and potatoes, or else 
sprinkling their front yards. I donno how it 
was with the others, but I know I went along 
the streets seeing through them little houses 
like they was glass, and seeing the young 
folks eating their suppers and growing up and 
getting ready to live and to be. And in us 
ladies' arms, in them heavy papers, it seemed 



i66 MOTHERS TO MEN 

to me we was carrying new life to them, in little 
ways — in little ways, but ways that was going 
to be big with meaning. And I felt as if some- 
thing in me kind of snuggled up closer to the 
way things was meant to be. 

"Us that went west got clear the whole length 
of Daphne Street without anybody seeing what 
we was doing, or else believing that we was 
doing it orderly and legitimate. And away 
out by the Pump pasture, we started in dis- 
tributing, and we come working down town, 
handing out papers to the residence part like 
mad and taking in dimes like wild. They was 
so many of us, and the Evening Daily office 
was so located, that by the time Mis' Sykes 
and Mis' Toplady and I come around the corner 
where the men and Rob Henney and the re- 
joiners and the carriers was loafing, waiting, 
smoking, and secure, we didn't have many 
papers left. And we three was the first ones 
back. 

"^Evenin' paper ?' says Mis' Toplady, casual. 
^{Friendship Village Evenin^ Daily ^ Extra? All 
the news for a dime ? ' 

"Never have I see a man so truly flabbergasted 
as Rob Henney, and he did look like .death. 

"* You're rejoined !' he yelled, or whatever it 
18 they say — * you're rejoined by law from 



MOTHERS TO MEN 167 

printin' your papers or from deestributin' the 
same/ \ 

"'Why, Rob Henney/ says Mis' Toplady, 'no 
call to show fight like that. Half the town is 
readin' its papers by now. They've been out 
for three-quarters of an hour/ she says. 

"Then soft and faint and acrost the street, we 
heard somebody laugh, and then kind of spat 
hands ; and we all looked up. And there in the 
open upstairs window of the building opposite, 
we see leaning out Eppleby Holcomb and Tim- 
othy Toplady and Silas Sykes. And when we 
crossed eyes, they all made a little cheer like a 
theatre; and then they come clumping down 
stairs and acrost to where we was. 

"'Won out, didn't you, by heck !' says Silas, 
that can only see that far. 

"'Blisterin' Benson,' says Timothy, gleeful. 
'/ say we ain't got no cause to regret our wifes' 
brains.' 

"But Eppleby, he never said a word. He 
just smiled slow and a-looking past us. And 
we knew that from the beginning he had seen 
our whole plan, face to face. 

"Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady and me, see- 
ing how Rob Henney stood muttering and beat, 
and seeing how the day had gone, and seeing 
what was what in the world and in all outside 



i68 MOTHERS TO MEN 

of it, we looked at each other, dead tired, and 
real happy, and then we just dragged along home 
to our kitchens and went to cooking supper. 
But oh, it wasn't our same old kitchens nor it 
wasn't our same old Friendship Village. We 
was in places newer and better and up higher, 
where we see how things are, and how life would 
get more particular about us if we'd get par- 
ticular about some more of life. 



VII 

"Well, of course then we had Sixty Dollars 
or so to spend, and Sodality never could rest a 
minute when it had money to do with if it 
wasn't doing it, any more than it could rest when 
it had something to do and no money to do with. 
It made a nice, active circle. Wishing for 
dreams to come true, and then, when they do 
come true, making the true things sprout more 
dreams, is another of them circles. I always 
think they're what keeps us a-going, not only 
immortal but busy. 

"And then with us there's another reason for 
voting our money prompt. As soon as we've 
made any and the news has got out around, it's 
happened two-three times that somebody has 
put in an application for a headstone for some- 
body dead that can't afford one. The first time 
that was done the application was made by the 
wife of a harness maker that had a little shop 
in the back street and had been saving up his 
money for a good tombstone. * I ain't had 
much of a position here in life,' he used to say. 
*I never was pointed out as a leading citizen, 

269 



170 MOTHERS TO MEN 

But Fm goin' to fix it so^s when I'm buried and 
folks come to the Cemetery, nobody'll get by 
my grave without noticin' my tombstone/ And 
then he took sick with inflammatory rheumatism, 
and if it didn't last him three years and et up 
his whole tombstone fund. He use' to worry 
about it considerable as the rheumatism kept 
reducing the granite inch after inch, and he died, 
thinking he wasn't going to have nothing but 
markers to him. So his old wife come and told 
Sodality, crying to think he wasn't going to 
seem no real true inhabitant of Cemetery, any 
more than he had of the village. And we felt 
so sorry for her we took part of the Thirty 
Dollars we'd made at the rummage sale and 
bought him a nice cement stone, and put the 
verse on to attract attention that he'd wrote 
himself : — 

" * STOP. LOOK. LISTEN. 
HERE LAYS ME. 
MY GRAVE IS JUST AS BIG 
AS YOURS WILL BE.* 

"Some was inclined to criticise Jeb for being 
so ambitious in death, and stopping to think 
how good a showing he could make. Buf I 
donno, I always sort of understood him. He 
wanted to be somebody. He'd used to try to 



MOTHERS TO MEN 171 

have a voice in public affairs, but somehow what 
he proposed wasn't ever practical and never 
could get itself adopted. His judgment wasn't 
much, and time and again he'd voted against the 
town's good, and he see it afterward. He missed 
being a real citizen of his town, and he knew it, 
and he hankered to be a citizen of his Cemetery. 
And wherever he is now, I bet that healthy han- 
kering is strained and purified and helping him 
ahead. 

"But our buying that stone for Jeb's widow's 
husband's grave let us in for perpetual applica- 
tions for monuments ; and so when we had any 
money we always went right to work and voted 
it for general Cemetery improvement, so there 
wasn't ever any money in the treasury for the 
applications. Anyway, we felt we'd ought to 
encourage self-made graves and not pauperize 
our corpses. 

" So the very next afternoon after we got our 
paper out, we met at Mis' Sykes's ; and the day 
being mild and gold, almost all of Sodality turned 
out, and Mis' Sykes used both her parlours. It 
was funny; but such times there fell on them 
that sat Front Parlour a sort of what-you-might- 
call-distinction over them that sat Back Parlour. 
It's the same to our parties. Them that are set 
down to the dining-room table always seem a 



172 MOTHERS TO MEN 

little more company than them that are served 
to the little sewing tables around in the open 
rooms, and we all feel it, though we all pretend 
not, as well-bred as we know how. I donno 
but there's something to it, too.. Mis' Sykes, 
for instance, she always gets put to a dining 
table. Nobody would ever think of setting 
her down to a small one, no more than they would 
a Proudfit. But me, I generally get tucked 
down to a sewing table and in a rocking-chair, 
if there ain't enough cane seats to go around. 
Things often divide themselves true to them- 
selves in this life, after all. 

"This was the last regular meeting before 
our Annual. The Annual, at Insley's suggestion, 
was going to be in the schoolhouse, and it was 
going to be an open evening meeting, with the 
whole town invited in and ice-cream served 
after. Regular meetings Sodality gives just tea ; 
special meetings we give hot chocolate or ice- 
lemonade, or both if the weather is unsettled; 
for entertainments we have cut-up fruit and 
little bakery cakes ; but to our Annual we mount 
up to ice-cream and some of our best cake 
makers' layer cake. And us ladies always dress 
according: afternoon home dresses to regular 
meetings ; second best to specials ; Sunday silks 
to entertainments; and straight going-out 



MOTHERS TO MEN 173 

clothes for the Annual. It makes it real nice. 
Nobody need to come dressed wrong, and no- 
body can go away disappointed at what they've 
been fed. 

"The meeting that day all ought to have gone 
smooth enough, it being so nice that our paper 
had sold well and all, but I guess the most of 
us was too tired out to have tried to have a 
meeting so soon. Anyhow, we didn't seem to 
come together slippery and light-running, like 
we do some days ; but instead I see the minute 
we begun to collect that we was all inclined to 
be heavy and, though not cross, yet frictionish. 

"For instance: Mis' Holcomb-that-was- 
Mame-Bliss had come in a new red waist with 
black raspberry buttons. And it was too much 
for Mis' Fire Chief Merriman that's been turn- 
ing her black poplin ever since the Fire Chief 
died. 

"'Dear me, Mis' Holcomb,' she says, 'I never 
see anybody have more dressy clothes. Did 
you put that on just for us ?' 

"Mis' Holcomb shut her lips tight. 

"'This is for home wear,' she says short, when 
she opened them. 

" 'Mean to say you get a cooked supper in that 
rig ?' says Mis' Merriman. 'Fry meat in it, do 
you ? ' 



174 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"*We don't eat as hearty as some/ says Mame. 
*We don't insist on warm suppers. We feel at 
our house we have to keep our bills down/ 

"Mis' Merriman straightened up, re^l brittle. 

"*My gracious/ she says, *I guess I live as 
cheap as the best does.' 

"^I see you buying shelled nuts, just the 
same,' says Mis' Holcomb, ^when shellin' 'em 
with your fingers cost twenty cents off.' 

" * I ain't never had my store-buyin ' criticised 
before,' says Mis' Merriman, elbows back. 

"*Nor,' says Mis' Holcomb, bitter, ^have I 
ever before, in my twenty-six years of married 
life, ever been called dressy.^ 

"Then Mis' Toplady, she sort of shouldered 
into the minute, big and placid and nice-feeling. 

"*Mame,' she says, ^set over here where you 
can use the lead-pencil on my watch chain, and 
put down that crochet pattern I wanted, will 
you ?' 

"Mame come over by her and took the pencil. 
Mis' Toplady leaning over so's she could use it ; 
but before she put the crochet pattern down, 
Mame made one, experimental, on the stiff 
bottom of her work-bag, and Libby Liberty 
thought she'd make a little joking. 

"*S-8h-h,' says Libby, *the authoress is takin' 
down notes.' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 175 



(( 



Mis' Holcomb has had two-three poems 
in the Friendship Daily, and she's real sensitive 
over. it. 

"*Fd be polite if I couldn't be pleasant, 
Libby,' says Mame, acid. 

" ' I'm pleasant enough to pleasant folks,' snaps 
Libby, up in arms in a minute. Nothing what- 
ever makes anybody so mad as to have what was 
meant playful took plain. 

"* I,' says Mis' Holcomb, majestic^ * would pay 
some attention to my company manners, no 
matter what I was in the home.' 

"'That makes me think,' puts in Mis' Top- 
lady, hasty, * speaking of company so, who's 
heard anything about the evenin' company up to 
Proudfits'?' 

"It was something all our heads was full of, 
being half the village had just been invited in 
to the big evening affair that was to end up the 
house party, and we'd all of pitched in and talked 
fast anyhow to take our minds off the spat. 

"* Elbert's comin' home to go to it an' to 
stay Sunday an' as much as he can spare,' says 
Mis' Sykes. Elbert is her son and all Silas 
Sykes ought to of been, Elbert is. 

"^Letty Ames is home for the party, too,' says 
Libby Liberty, speaking up in defence of their 
block, that Letty lives in. She's just gradu- 



176 MOTHERS TO MEN 

ated at Indian Mound and has been visiting up 
the state. 

"My niece that had come on for a few days 
would be gone before the party come off, so she 
didn't seem worth mentioning for real news 
value at a time when everything was centring in 
an evening company at Proudfit House. No 
doubt about it, Proudfit House does give distinc- 
tion to Friendship Village, kind of like a finishing 
school would, or a circus wintering in us. 

" * I heard,' says Mis' Jimmy Sturgis, * that the 
hired help set up all night long cleanin' the silver. 
I shouldn't think that would of been necessary, 
with any kind of management behind 'em.' 

"*You don't get much management now'- 
days,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, sighing. 'Things 
slap along awful haphazard.' 

"'I know I ain't the system to myself that I 
use' to have,' says Abagail Arnold. 'Why, the 
other day I found my soda in one butt'ry an' 
my bakin' powder in the other.' 

"'An' I heard,' says Mame Holcomb — that's 
one thing about Mame, you can't keep her mad. 
She'll flare up and be a tongue of flame one 
minute, and the next she's actin' like a friendly 
open fire on a family hearth. And I always 
trust that kind — I can't help it — 'I heard,' 
she said, 'that for the party that night the ice- 






MOTHERS TO MEN 177 

cream is coming in forms, calla-lilies an' dogs 
an' like that.' 

"^I heard,' says Mis' Uppers, 'that Emerel 
Daniel was invited up to help an' she set up 
nights and got her a new dress for helpin' in, 
and now little Otie's sick and she , likely can't 
go near.' 

Mis' Toplady looks over her glasses. 
'Is Otie sick again?' says she. 'Well, if 
Emerel don't move out of Black Hollow, she'll 
lose him just like she done Abe. Can't she sell ?' 

"Black Hollow is the town's pet breeding 
place for typhoid, that the ladies has been at the 
council to clean up for a year now. And no- 
body will buy there, so Emerel's had to live in 
her house to save rent. 

"'She's made her a nice dress an' she was so 
excited and pleased,' says Mis' Uppers, griev- 
ing. ' I do hope it was a dark shade so if bereave- 
ment follows — ' 

"'I suppose you'll have a new cloth. Mis' 
Sykes,' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 'you're so 
up-to-date.' It's always one trouble with Mis' 
Hubbelthwait : she will flatter the flatterable. 
But that time it didn't work. Mis' Sykes was 
up on a chair fixing a window-shade that had flew 
up, and I guess she must have pinched her 
finger, she was so crispy. 



178 MOTHERS TO MEN 

*^ * I thought I had things that was full stylish 
enough to wear/ she says stiff. 

"*I didn^t mean harm/ says Mis' Hubbel- 
thwait, humble. 

"Just then we all got up to see out the window, 
for the Proudfit automobile drew up to Mis' 
Sykes's gate. They was several folks in it, like 
they had been most of the time during the house 
party, with everybody flying hither and yon; 
and they was letting Mis' Emmons out. It 
was just exactly like her to remember to come 
right out of the midst of a house party to a 
meeting of Sodality. That woman was pure 
gold. When they was a lot of things to choose 
about, she always seemed to let the pleasant and 
the light and the easy-to-do slip right through her 
fingers, that would close up by and by on the 
big real thing that most folks would pretend 
to try to catch after it had slipped through, and 
yet would be awful glad to see disappearing. 

**We didn't talk clothes any more after Mis' 
Emmons come in. Some way her clothes was so 
professional seeming, in colour and cut, that 
beside of her the rest of us never said much about 
ours ; though I will say Mis' Emmons always 
. wore her clothes like she was no more thinking 
about them than she would be thinking about 
morning housework togs. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 179 

"^Well-said, how's the little boy, Mis' Em- 
mons ? ' asks Mis' Toplady, hearty. * I de- 
clare I couldn't go to sleep a night or two ago 
for thinkin' about the little soul. Heard any 
sound out of his folks ?' 

"Tm going to tell you about that pretty 
soon/ Mis' Emmons answered — and it made my 
heart beat a little with wondering if she'd got 
her plans thought out, not only four-square, but 
tower-high. *He is well — he wanted to come 
to the meeting. "I like ladies," he said, "when 
they look at me like loving, but not when 
they touch me much." Mr. Insley has him out 
walking.' 

"^Little soul,' says Mis' Toplady, again. 

"Out in the back parlour, some of us had been 
talking about Christopher already. 

"*I heard,' Mis' Merriman says, that wasn't 
to the church the night Christopher come, *I 
heard that he didn't have much of any clothes 
on. An' that nobody could understand what he 
said. An' that nobody could get him to speak a 
word.' 

"* Pshaw,' Mis' Sturgis puts in, *he was a 
nice-dressed little boy, though wet; an' quite 
conversational.' 

"'Well, I think it's a great problem,' says Mis' 
Uppers. 'He's too young for the poorhouse and 



i8o MOTHERS TO MEN 

too old for the babies' home. Seems like they 
wasn't anything to do with him.' 

"There come a lull when Mis' Postmaster 
Sykes, in a ruffled lawn that had shrunk too 
short for anything but house wear, stood up 
by the piano and called the meeting to order. 
And when we'd got on down to new business, 
the purpose of the meeting and a hint of the 
pleasure was stated formal by Mis' Sykes her- 
self. *One thing why I like to preside at 
Sodality,' I heard her tell once, Ms, you do get 
your say whenever you want it, and nobody 
can interrupt you when you're in the chair.' 

"* Ladies,' she says, ^ we've seen from the 
treasurer's report we've got some Sixty-odd 
Dollars on hand. The question is, where shall 
we vote it to. Let the discussion be free.' 

" Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss spoke 
first, with a kind of a bright manner of having 
thought it all out over her dish pan and her 
bread pan. There is this about belonging to 
Sodality: We just live Sodality every day, around 
our work. We don't forget it except to meet- 
ings, same as some. 

"^Well, I just tell you what,' Mame says, 
* I think now is our time to get a big monument 
for the middle of Cemetery that'll do some 
credit to the Dead. AH our little local head- 



MOTHERS TO MEN i8i 

stones is quite tasty and shows our interest 
in them that's gone before; but not one of 
them is real up-to-date. Let's buy a nice mon- 
ument that'll show from the railroad track.' 

"I spoke up short off from the back parlour, 
where I set 'scallopin' a bedspread about as 
big as the carpet. 

"^ Who to?' I says. 

"*0h, I donno's it makes much differ'nce,' 
Mis' Holcomb says, warming to her theme, 
*so's it was some leadin' citizen. We might 
take a town vote on it.' 

"Mis' Sturgis set up straight, eyebrows up. 
I donno how it is, but Mis' Sturgis's pompadour 
always seems so much higher as soon as she 
gets interested. 

"*Why, my gracious,' she says, *we might 
earn quite a lot o' money that way. We might 
have a regular votin' contest on who that's 
dead should get the monument — so much a 
vote an' the names of the successful ones run 
every night in the Daily — ' 

"^Well-a, why do it for anybody dead?' says 
Libby Liberty. *Why not get the monument 
here and have it on view an' then have folks 
kind of bid on it for their own, real votin' style. 
In the cities now everybody picks out their 
own monuments ahead of time. That would 



i82 MOTHERS TO MEN 

be doing for the Living, the way Mr. Insley 
said.' 

"*0h, there'd be hard feelin' that way,' 
spoke up Mis' Uppers, decided. * Whoever got 
it, an' got buried under it, never could feel it 
was his own stone. Everybody that had 
bought votes for themselves could come out 
walking in the Cemetery Sunday afternoons 
and could point out the monument and tell 
how much of a money interest they had in it. 
Oh, no, I don't think that'd do at all.' 

"'Well, stick to havin' it for the Dead, then,' 
Libby gives in. * We've got to remember our 
constitution.' 

"Mis' Amanda Toplady was always going 
down after something in the bottom of her 
pocket, set low in her full black skirt. She done 
this now, for a spool or a lozenger. And she 
says, meantime: * Seems like that'd be awful 
irreverent, connectin' up the Dead with votes 
that way.' 

"*ikfy notion,' says Mis' Sykes, with her way 
of throwin' up one corner of her head, 'it ain't 
one-tenth part as irreverent as forgettin' all 
about 'em.' 

"'Of course it ain't,' agreed Mis' Hubbel- 
thwait. 'Real, true irreverence is made up of 
buryin' folks and leavin' 'em go their way. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 183 

Why, I bet you there ain't any one of 'em 
that wouldn't be cheered up by bein' voted 
for.' 

"I couldn't help piping up again from the 
back parlour. *What about them that don't 
get no votes ?' I asks. 'What about them that 
is beat in death like they may of been in life ? 
What's there to cheer them up ? If I was them,' 
says I, * I'd ha'nt the whole Sodality,' 

"'No need to be so sacrilegiou? in speakin' 
of the Dead as I know of, Calliope,' says Mis' 
Sykes that was in the chair and could rebuke 
at will. 

"That made me kind o' mad, and I answered 
back, chair or no chair : 'A thing is sacrilegious,' 
says I, 'according to which side of the fence 
you're on. But the fence it don't change none.' 

"Mis' Toplady looked over her glasses and 
out the window and like she see far away. 

"'Land, land,' she says, 'I'd like to take that 
Sixty Dollars and hire some place to invite the 
young folks into evenings, that don't have no 
place to go on earth for fun. Friendship Vil- 
lage,' says she, 'is about as lively as Cemetery 
is for the young folks.' 

"'Well, but. Mis' Toplady,' says Mis' Sykes, 
reprovin', 'the young folks is alive and able 
to see to themselves. They don't come in 



i84 MOTHERS TO MEN 

Sodality's scope. Everything we do has got 
to be connect' with Cemetery/ 

"'I can't help it,' Mis' Toplady answers, *if 
It is. I'd like to invite 'em in for some good 
safe evenin's somewheres instead of leaving 'em 
trapse the streets. And if I had to have Ceme- 
tery in it somehow, I donno but I'd make it a 
lawn party and give it in Cemetery and have 
done with it.' 

"We all laughed, but I knew that under- 
neath. Mis' Toplady was kind of half-and-half 
in earnest. 

"^The young folks,' says Mis' Sykes, myster- 
ious, *is going to be took care of by the proper 
means, very, very soon.' 

"^I donno,' says Mis' Holcomb, obstinate. 
*I think the monument is a real nice idea. 
Grandfather Holcomb, now, him that helped 
draft the town, or whatever it is they do, I 
bet he'd be real pleased to be voted for.' 

"But Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, seems she 
couldn't forget the little way Mame had spoke 
to her before, and she leaned forward and cut 
her way into the talking. 

"^Why, Mis' Holcomb,' she says, *of course 
your Grandfather Holcomb can be voted on if 
he wants to and if he thinks he could get it. 
But dead though he is, what he done can't 



MOTHERS TO MEN 185 

hold a candle to what Grandfather Merriman 
done. That man just about run this town for 
years on end.' 

"*I heard he did,' said Mame, short. *Those 
was the days before things was called by their 
true names in politics and in graft and like that.' 

"^Fm sure/ says Mis' Merriman, her voice 
slipping, ^Grandfather Merriman was an angel 
in heaven to his family. And he started the 
very Cemetery by bein' buried in it first himself, 
and he took a front lot — ' 

"* Ladies, ladies,' says Mis' Sykes, stern, 
*we ain't votin' yet. Has anybody got anything 
else to offer ? Let the discussion be free.' 

"*What do we get a monument for, anyway?' 
says Mis' Toplady, hemming peaceful. *Why 
don't we stick the money onto the new iron 
fence for Cemetery, same as we've been trying 
to do for years ? ' 

"^That's what I was thinking,' says Abagail 
Arnold, smiling. ^Whenever I make one of my 
layer cakes for Sodality Annual, and frost it 
white and make mounds of frosted nuts on top, 
I always wish Cemetery had a fence around 
so's I could make a frosting one on the edge of 
the cake, appropriate.' 

"*Why, but my land, Abagail,' says Mis' 
Holcomb, ^ can't you see the differ'nce between 



i86 MOTHERS TO MEN 

workin' for a dead iron fence and working for 
the real, right down Dead that once was the 
living ? Where's your humanity, Fd like to 
know, and your loyalty to Friendship Village 
inhabitants that was, that you set the old iron 
fence over against 'em. What's a fence beside 
folks ? ' 

"All this time Mis' Emmons, there in the 
front parlour, had just sat still, stitching away 
on some little garment or other, but now she 
looked up quick, as if she was going to speak. 
She even begun to speak with a * Madame 
President' that covered up several excited 
beginnings. But as she done so, I looked 
through the folding doors and see her catch 
sight of somebody out in the street. And I 
looked out the bay-window in the back parlour 
and I see who it was : it was a man, carefully 
guiding a little bit of a man who was walking 
on the flat board top of the Sykes's fence. So, 
instead of speaking formal, all Mis' Emmons 
done was to make a little motion towards the 
window, so that her contribution to the debating 
was nothing but — 

" ^Madame President — look.' 

"We all looked, them in the out-of-range 
corners of the room getting up and holding 
their work in their aprons, and peering past; 



MOTHERS TO MEN 187 

and us in the back parlour tried for glimpses out 
the side bay-window, past Mis' Sykes's big 
sword fern. And so the most of us see Insley 
walking with Christopher, who was footing 
it very delicate and grave, picking out his places 
to step as if a real lot depended on it. 

"^That's Chris,' says Mis' Emmons, simple, 
'that's come to us.' And you'd of said she hardly 
spoke the *us' real conscious of herself. She 
looked round at us all. * Let's have him in for 
a minute,' she says. 

"'The little soul ! Let's so do/ Mis' Amanda 
Toplady says, hearty. 

"It was Mis' Emmons that went to the door 
and called them, and I guess Insley, when he 
see her, must of wondered what made her face 
seem like that. He went on up town, and the 
little chap come trotting up the walk. 

"When Chris come in Mis' Sykes's front 
parlour among all the women, there run round 
that little murmuring sound that a crowd of 
women uses to greet the coming in their midst 
of any child. And I s'pose it was a little more 
so than ever for Chris, that they hadn't all 
seen yet — 'count of so few being out the night 
he come and 'count of his having been up to 
Proudfit House 'most ever since. Us in the 
back parlour went crowding in the front, and some 



i88 MOTHERS TO MEN 

come down to the hall door to be the nearer. 
Mis' Amanda Toplady, hunting in her deep 
pocket, this time for a lozenger, says fervent 
above the rest : — 

"^The little soul/ 

"And he did resemble one, standing there so 
shy and manly in his new little brown clothes. 

"Mis' Emmons's eyes was bright, and I 
thought I see a kind of challenge in her way of 
drawing the child towards her. 

"* Chris,' she says, *tell them what you had 
in your paper bag when you came to the church 
the other night.' 

" Chris remembered : Sugar rolls and cream- 
puffs and fruit-cake, he recites it grand. *My 
supper,' he adds, no less grand. *But that was 
'cause I didn't have my dinner nor my break- 
fast,' he explains, so's we wouldn't think he'd 
had too much at once. 

"*What was the matter with your foot?' 
Mis' Emmons goes on. 

"Christopher had a little smile that just 
about won you — a sort of abashed little smile, 
that begun over by one side of his mouth, and 
when he was going to smile that way he always 
started in by turning away his head. He done 
this now; but we could all hear what he said. 
It was: — 



MOTHERS TO MEN 189 

"*My biggest toe went right through a hole, 
an' it choked me awful.' 

"About a child's foot hurting, or a little sore 
heel, there is something that makes mothers 
out of everybody, for a minute or two. The 
women all twittered into a little ripple of under- 
standing. Probably to every woman there 
come the picture of the little cold, wet foot 
and the choked toe. I know I could see it, 
and I can see it yet. 

"^Lambin',' says Mis' Toplady, in more than 
two syllables, *come here for a peppermint.' 

"Chris went right over to her. *I been 
thirsty for a drink of water since all day,' he 
says confidential. *Have you got one ?' 

"Mis' Toplady went with the child, and then 
Mis' Emmons took something from her bag and 
held it up. It was Christopher's father's letter 
that he'd brought with him that night. 

"She read the letter out loud, in everybody's 
perfectly breathless silence that was broken 
only by Christopher laughing out in the kitchen. 
*My friends,' Mis' Emmons says when she'd 
got through, * doesn't it seem to you as if our 
work had come to us ? And that if it isn't 
Chris himself, at least it ought to be people, live 
people — and not an iron fence or even a monu- 
ment that will show from the railroad track ? ' 



190 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"And with that, standing in the doorway 
with my arms full of bedspread, I piped right 
up, just like rd been longing to pipe up ever 
since that night at Mis' Emmons's when Vd 
talked with Insley : — 

"*Yes, sir,' I says emphatic, *it does. With- 
out meaning to be sacrilegious in the least,' 
I says toward Mis' Sykes, *I believe that the 
Dead is a lot better prepared to take care of 
themselves than a good many of the Living 



is.' 



"There was a kind of a little pause at this, 
all but Mis' Sykes. Mis' Sykes don't pause 
easy. She spoke right back, sort of elevating 
one temple : — 

"^The object of this meeting as the chair 
understands it,' says she, *is to discuss money 
spending, not idees.' 

. "But I didn't pay no more attention than as 
if I'd been a speaker in public life. And Mis' 
Toplady and Christopher, coming back to the 
room just then, I spoke to him and took a-hold 
of his little shoulder. 

"* Chris,' I says, *tell 'em what you're going 
to be when you grow up.' 

"The little boy stood up with his back against 
the door-casing, and he spoke back between 
peppermints : — 



MOTHERS TO MEN 191 

"Tm going to drive the loads of hay,' he 
declares himself. 

"*A little bit ago/ I says to 'em, *he was 
going to be a cream-puff man, and keep a church 
and manufacture black velvet for people's 
coffins. Think of all them futures — not to 
spend time on other possibilities. Don't it 
seem like we'd ought to keep him around here 
somewheres and help him decide ? Don't it 
seem like what he's going to be is resting with 
us?' 

"But now Mis' Sykes spoke out in her most 
presidential tone. 

"*It would be perfectly impossible,' she says, 
'for Sodality to spend its money on the child 
or on anybody else that's living. Our consti- 
tution says we shall work for Cemetery.' 

"* Well,' says I, rebellish, *then let's rip up 
our old constitution and buy ourselves a new 
pattern.' 

Mis' Sykes was getting to verge on mad. 
*But Sodality ain't an orphan asylum. 
Calliope,' says she, *nor none of us is that.' 

"* Ain't we — ain't we, Mis' Sykes?' I says. 
* Sometimes I donno what we're for if we ain't 
that.' 

"And then I just clear forgot myself, in one 
of th^m times that don't let you get to sleep 






192 MOTHERS TO MEN 

that night for thinking about, and that when 
you wake up is right there by the bed waiting 
for you, and that makes you feel sore when 
you think of afterwards — . sore, but glad, too. 

"'That's it,' I says, 'that's it. Fve been 
thinking about that a good deal lately. I 
s'pose it's because I ain't any children of my 
own to be so busy for that I can't think about 
their real good. Seems to me there ain't 
a child living no matter how saucy or soiled 
or similar, but could look us each one in the face 
and say, "What you doing for me and the rest 
of us .^" And what could we say to them ? We 
could say: "I'm buying some of you ginghams 
that won't shrink nor fade. Some of you I'm 
cooking food for, and some of you I'm Idtting 
go without it. And some of you I'm buying 
school books and playthings and some of you 
I'm leaving without 'em. I'm making up some 
of your beds and teaching you your manners 
and I'm loving you — some of you. And the 
rest of you I'm leaving walk in town after 
dark with a hole in your stocking." Whereas 
the line — whereas the line? How do we know 
which is the ones to do for ? I tell you I'm 
the orphan asylum to the whole lot of 'em. 
And so are you. And I move the Cemetery 
Improvement Sodality do something for this 



MOTHERS TO MEN 193 

little boy. We'd adopt him if he was dead — 
an' keep his grave as nice and neat as wax. 
Let's us adopt him instead of his grave ! ' 

"My bedspread had slipped down onto the 
floor, but I never knew when nor did I see it go. 
All I see was that some of them agreed with 
me — Alis' Emmons and Mis' Toplady and Mis' 
Hubbelthwait and Libby and even Mame that 
had proposed the monument. But some of 
the others was waiting as usual to see how Mis' 
Sykes was going to believe, and Mis' Sykes she 
was just standing there by the piano, her cheeks 
getting pinker and pinker up high on her face. 

"* Calliope,' she said, making a gesture. 
* Ladies ! this is every bit of it out of order. 
This ain't the subject that we come together 
to discuss.' 

"*It kind of seems to me,' says I, 'that it's 
a subject we was born to discuss.' 

"Mis' Toplady sort of rolled over in her chair 
and looked across her glasses to Mis' Sykes. 

"* Madame President,' says she, *as I under- 
stand it this fits in all right. What we're 
proposing is to spend Sodality's money on this 
little boy just the same as though he was dead. 
I move we do so.' 

"Two-three of 'em seconded it, but scairt and 
scattering. 



194 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"^Mis' Toplady/ says Mis' Sykes. * Ladies ! 
This is a good deal too headlong. A com- 



mittee'd ought — ' 

*** Question — question/ demands Mis' Em- 
mons, serene, and she met my eye and smiled 
some, in that little «;^-understand look that can 
pierce through a roomful of people like the wind. 

"*Mis' Emmons,' says Mis' Sykes, wildish. 
'Ladies ! Sodality has been organized over 
twenty years, doing the same thing. You 
can't change so offhand — ' You can't help 
admiring Mis' Sykes, for she simply don't know 
when she's beat. But this time she had a point 
with her, too. *If we want to vote to amend 
the constitution,' she said, * you've got to lay 
down your wishes on the table for one week.' 

"*I daresay you have,' says Mis' Emmons, 

* looking grave. *Well, I move that we amend 

the constitution of this society, and I move 

that we do it next week at the open annual 

meeting of the Sodality.' 

"* Second the motion,' says I, with my feet 
on my white bedspread. 

"And somehow the phrase caught Chris- 
topher's ear, like a tune might to march by. 

" * Second a motion — second a motion ! ' he 
chants to himself, standing by Mis' Toplady's 
knee. 



VIII 

" I HAD promised Insley to run in the Cadozas' 
after the meeting, and see the little boy; and 
Mis' Emmons having to go home before she 
started back to the Proudfits', Christopher 
walked along with me. When we got out to 
the end of Daphne Street, Insley overtook us 
on his way out to the Cadoza^', too. 

"His shoes were some muddy, and I guessed 
that he had been where of late he'd spent as 
much time as he could spare, both when he 
was in the village and when he was over to 
Indian Mound. Without digging down into 
his eyes, the same as some do to folks that's 
in trouble, I had sensed that there had come 
down on him everybody's hour of cutting some- 
thing out of life, which is as elemental a thing 
to do as dying is, and I donno but it's the same 
kind as dying is besides. And he had been tak- 
ing his hour in the elemental way, wanting to 
be alone and to kind of get near to the earth. 
I mean tramping the hills, ploughing along the 
narrow paths close to the barb' wire fences, 
plunging into the little groves. The little 

X95 



196 MOTHERS TO MEN 

groves have such an' I-know look of understand- 
ing all about any difficulty till you walk inside 
of them, when all to once they stop seeming to 
know about your special trouble and begin 
another kind of slow soothing, same as summing 
things up will soothe you, now and then. 

"Chris chattered to him, lovable. 

"*I had some peppermenges,' he says, *and 
I like hot ice-cream, too. Don't you ? Can 
you make that ? ' he inquires, slipping his hand 
in Insley's. 

"Of course this made a pang — when you're 
hurt, 'most everything makes a pang. And 
this must of brought back that one evening 
with Robin that he would have to remember, and 
all the little stupid jokes they'd had that night 
must of rose up and hit at him, with the awful 
power of the little things that don't matter one 
bit and yet that matter everything. 

"*What can you make, Chris?' Insley says 
to him. * Can you make candy ? And pull 
it — like this ? ' 

"*Once a lady stirred me some an' cut it 
up in squares,' Chris explained, *but I never did 
make any. My mama couldn't make candy, 
I guess, but she could make all other things — 
pancakes an' mittens an' nice stove fires my 
mama could make. The bag we got the salt 



MOTHERS TO MEN 197 

in — she made me two handkerchiefs out of 
that bag/ he ended proudly. 

" * Did she — did she ? ' Insley tempted him 



on. 






*Yes,' Chris went on, hopping beside him, 
*but now IVe got to hurry an' be a man, 'cause 
litty boys ain't very good things. Can you 
make po'try ?' he wound up. 

*Why, Chris — can you ?' Insley asked. 
Well, when I was comin' along with my 
daddy that night I made one,' the child says. 
And when Insley questions him a little he got 
this much more out of him. *It started, "Look 
at the trees so green an' fair,"' he says, *but 
I forget the rest.' 

" * Do you want to be a poet when you grow 
up ?' Insley ask' him. 

"*Yes, I do,' the child says ready. *I think 
I'll be that first an' then I'll be the President, 
too. But what I'd rather be is the sprinkler- 
cart man, wouldn't you ?' 

"* Conceivably,' Insley says, and by the look 
on his face I bet his hand tightened up on the 
child's hand. 

"*At Sodality,' I says, *he just told them he 
was going to drive loads of hay. He's made 
several selections.' 

"He looked at me over the child's head, and 



198 MOTHERS TO MEN 

I guess we was both thinking the same thing: 
Trust nature to work this out alone? * Con- 
ceivably,' again. But all of a sudden I know 
we both burned to help to do it. And as 
Insley talked to the child, I think some touch 
of his enterprise come back and breathed on 
him. In them few last days I shouldn't wonder 
if his work hadn't stopped soaring to the mean- 
ing of spirit and sunk down again to be just 
body drudgery. He couldn't ever help having 
his old possessing love of men, and his man's 
strong resolution to keep a-going, but I shouldn't 
wonder if the wings of the thing he meant to 
do had got folded up. And Christopher, here, 
was sort of releasing them out again. 

"'How's the little Cadoza boy?' I ask' him 
pretty soon, v 

"'He's getting on,' he says. 'Dr. Barrows 
was down yesterday — he wants him for a 
fortnight or so at the hospital in town, where 
he can have good care and food. His mother 
doesn't want him to go. I hoped you'd talk 
with her.' 

"Before we got to the Cadoza house Insley 
looked over to me, enigmatish. 'Want to see 
something ? ' he says, and he handed me a 
letter. I read it, and some of it I knew what it 
meant and some of it I didn't. It was from 



MOTHERS TO MEN 199 

Alex Proudfit, asking him up to Proudfit House 
to the house party. 

"... Ain't it astonishing how awful fes- 
tive the word * house party' sounds. * Party' 
sounds festive, though not much more so than 
* company' or * gathering' that we use more 
common. *Ball,' of course, is real glittering, 
and paints the inside of your head into pic- 
tures, instantaneous. But a house party — 
maybe it's because I never was to one ; maybe 
it's because I never heard of one till late in 
life; maybe it's because nobody ever had one 
before in Friendship Village — but that word 
give me all the sensation that 'her golden 
coach' and 'his silver armour' and 'good fairy' 
used to have for me when I was a little girl. 
'House party ! ' Anything shiny might happen 
to one of them. It's like you'd took something 
vanishin', like a party, and just seized onto it 
and made it stay longer than Time and the 
World ever intended. It's like making a busi- 
ness of the short-lived. 

"Well, some of Alex's letter went about like 
this : — 

'"Join us for the whole time, do,' it says, 
and it went on about there being rather an 
interesting group, — 'a jolly individualist,' I 
recollect he says, 'for your special benefits 



200 MOTHERS TO MEN 

He'll convert you where I couldn't, because 
he's kept his love for men and I haven't. And 
of course I've some women — pretty, bless 
them, and thank the Lord not one of them 
troubling whether she loves mankind or not, 
so long as men love her. And there you 
have Nature uncovered at her task ! I shall 
expect you for every moment that you can 
spare. . . . ' I remember the wording because 
it struck me it was all so like Alex that I 
could pretty near talk to it and have it answer 
back. 

"*Tell me,' Insley says, when I handed the 
letter back to him, *you know — him. Alex 
Proudfit. Does he put all that on ? Is it 
his mask ? Does he feel differently and do 
differently when folks don't know?' 

"^Well,' I says, slow, *I donno. He gives the 
Cadozas their rent, but when Mis' Cadoza went 
to thank him, once, he sent down word for her 
to go and see his agent.' 

"He nodded, and I'd never heard him speak 
bitter before. ^That's it,' he says, Hhat's it. 
That's the way we bungle things. . . .' 

"We'd got almost to the Cadozas' when we 
heard an automobile coming behind us, and as 
we stood aside to let it go by, Robin's face 
flashed past us at the window. Mis' Emmons 



MOTHERS TO MEN 201 

was with her, that Robin had come down after. 
Right off the car stopped and Robin jumped 
out and come hurrying back towards us. FU 
never forget the minute. We m^t right in 
front of the old tumble-down Cadoza house 
with the lilacs so high in the front yard that 
the place looked pretty near nice, like the rest 
of the world. It was a splendid afternoon, one 
that had got it's gold persuaded to burst through 
a gray morning, like colour from a bunch of sil- 
ver buds ; and now the air was all full of lovely 
things, light and little wind and late sun and 
I donno but things we didn't know about. 
And everyone of them seemed in Robin's face 
as she came towards us, and more, too, that we 
couldn't name or place. 

"I think the mere exquisite girlishness of 
her come home to Insley as even her strength 
and her womanliness, that night he talked with 
her, had not moved him. I donno but in the 
big field of his man's dream, he had pretty near 
forgot how obvious her charm was. I'm pretty 
sure that in those days when he was tramping 
the hills alone, the thing that he was fighting 
with was that he was going to lose her compan- 
ioning in the life they both dreamed. But now 
her hurrying so and her little faint agitation 
made her appeal a new thing, fifty times as 



302 MOTHERS TO MEN 

lovely, fifty times as feminine, and sort of fill- 
ing in the picture of herself with all the differ- 
ent kinds of women she was in one. 

"So noWjj, as he stood there with her, looking 
down in her face, touching her friendly hand, 
I think that was the first real, overhauling 
minute when he was just swept by the under- 
standing that his loss was so many times what 
he'd thought it was going to be. For it was 
her that he wanted, it was her that he would 
miss for herself and not for any dear plans 
of work-fellowship alone. She understood his 
dream, but there was other things she under- 
stood about, too. A man can love a woman 
for a whole collection of little dear things — 
and he can lose her and grieve ; he can Ipve her 
for her big way of looking at things, and he can 
lose her and grieve; he can love her because 
she is his work-fellow, and he can lose her and 
grieve. But if, on top of one of these, he loves 
her because she is she, the woman that knows 
about life and is capable of sharing all of life 
with him and of being tender about it, why 
then if he loses her, his grieving is going to be 
something that there ain't rightly no name for. 
And I think it was that minute there in the road 
that it first come to Insley that Robin was 
Robin, that of all the many women that she 



MOTHERS TO MEN 203 

was, first and most she was the woman that 
was capable of sharing with him all sides of 
living. 

"*I wanted . . / she says to him, uncertain. 
*0h, I wish very much that you would accept 
the invitation to some of the house party. I 
wanted to tell you.' 

"*I can't do that,' he answers, short and 
almost gruff. * Really I can't do that.' 

"But it seemed there was even a sort of nice 
childishness about her that you wouldn't have 
guessed. I always think it's a wonderful mo- 
ment when a woman knows a man well enough 
to show some of her childishness to him. But 
a woman that shows right off, close on the heels 
of an introduction, how childish she can be, 
it always sort o' makes me mad — like she'd 
told her first name without being asked about 
it. 

"* Please,' Robin says, *I'm asking it because 
I wish it very much. I want those people up 
there to know you. I want — ' 

"He shook his head, looking at her, eyes, 
mouth, and fresh cheeks, like he wished he was 
able to look at her face all at once. 

"*At least, at least,' she says .to him rapid, 
then, *you must come to the party at the end. 
You know I want to keep you for my friend 



204 MOTHERS TO MEN 

— I want to make you our friend. That 
night Aunt Eleanor is going to announce my 
engagement, and I want my friends to be there/ 

"That surprised me as much as it did him. 
Nobody in the village knew about the engage- 
ment yet except us two that knew it from that 
night at Mis' Emmons's. I wondered what on 
earth Insley was going to say and I remember 
how I hoped, pretty near fierce, that he wasn't 
going to smile and bow and wish her happiness 
and do the thing the world would have wanted 
of him. It may make things run smoother 
to do that way, but smoothness isn't the only 
thing the love of folks for folks knows about. 
I do like a man that now and then speaks out 
with the breath in his lungs and not just with 
the breath of his nostrils. And that's what 
Insley done — that's what he done, only I'm 
bound to say that I do think he spoke out be- 
fore he knew he was going to. 

"*That would be precisely why I couldn't 
come,' he said. ^Thank you, you know — 
but please don't ask me.' 

"As for Robin, at this her eyes widened, and 
beautiful colour swept her face. And she didn't 
at once turn away from him, but I see how she 
stood looking at him with a kind of a sharp 
intentness, less of wonder than of stopping short. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 205 



ti 



Christopher had run to the automobile and 
now he come a-hopping back. 

"* Robin ! ' he called. ^ Aunt Eleanor says you 
haf to be in a dress by dinner, and it's nozv.^ 

"*Do come for dinner, Mr. Insley,' Mis' 
Emmons calls, as Robin and Christopher went 
to join him. * We've got up a tableau or two 
for afterward. Come and help me be a tab- 
leau.' 

"He smiled and shook his head and answered 
her. And that reminded me that I'd got to 
hurry like wild, as usual. It was most six 
o'clock then, — it always is either most six 
o'clock or most noon when I get nearest to 
being interested, — and that night great things 
was going to be going on. Mis' Sykes and 
Mis' Toplady and the School Board and I 
was going to have a tableau of our own. 

"But for all that I couldn't help standing 
still a minute and looking after the automobile. 
It seemed as bad as some kind of a planet, 
carrying Robin off for forever and ever. And 
I wasn't so clear that I fancied its orbit. 

"*I've got a whole string of minds not to 
go to that party myself,' I says, meditative. 

"But Insley never answered. He just come 
on around the Cadozas' house. 



IX 

"I NEVER speak much about my relations, 
because I haven't got many. If I did have, I 
suppose I should be telling about how peculiar 
they take their tea and coffee, and what they 
died of, and showing samples of their clothes 
and acting like my own immediate family 
made up life, just like most folks does. But 
I haven't got much of any relatives, nor no 
ancestors to brag about. * Nothing for kin but 
the world,' I always say. 

"But back in the middle of June I had got 
a letter from a cousin, like a bow from the 
blue. And the morning I got it, and with it 
yet unopened in my hand, Silas Sykes come 
out from behind the post-office window and 
tapped me on the arm. 

"* Calliope,' he says, * we've about made up 
our minds — the School Board an' some o' the 
leadin' citizens has — to appoint a Women's 
Evenin' Vigilance Committee, secret. An' we 
want you an' Mis' Toplady an' Mis' Sykes 
should be it.' 

306 



MOTHERS TO MEN 207 

"* Vigilance/ I says, thoughtful. *I recol- 
lect missin' on the meanin' of that word in 
school. I recollect I called it "viligance" an' 
said it meant a 'bus. I donno if I rightly 
know what it means now^ Silas.' 

"Silas cleared his throat an' whispered hoarse, 
in a way he's got : * Women don't have no call, 
much for the word,' he says. *It means when 
you sic your notice onto some one thing. We 
want a committee of you women should do it.' 

"* Notice tvhat?^ I says, some mystified. 
* What the men had ought to be up to an' ain't ? ' 

"But customers come streaming into the 
post-office store then, and some folks for their 
mail, and Silas set a time a couple o' days later 
in the afternoon for Mis' Toplady and Mis' 
Sykes and me to come down to the store and 
talk it over. 

"*An' you be here,' says Silas, beatin' it off 
with his finger. . *It's somethin' we got to do 
to protect our own public decency.' 

^^^ Public decency,' I says over, thoughtful, 
and went out fingerin' my letter that was in a 
strange handwriting and that I was dying to 
read. 

"It was a couple of days later that I what- 
you-might-say finished that letter, and between 
times I had it on the clock-shelf and give every 



208 MOTHERS TO MEN 

spare minute to making it out. Minerva Beach 
the letter was from — my cousin Minnie Beach's 
girl. Minnie had died awhile before, and 
Minerva, her daughter, was on her way West 
to look for a position, and should she spend a 
few days with me ? That was what I made 
out, though I donno how I done it, for her 
writing was so big and so up-and-down that 
every letter looked like it had on corsets and 
high heels. I never see such a mess ! It 
was like picking out a crochet pattern to try 
to read it. 

" I recollect that I was just finishing compos- 
ing my letter telling her to come along, and 
hurrying so's to take it to mail as I went down 
to the Vigilance Committee meeting, when the 
new photographer in town come to my door, 
with his horse and buggy tied to the gate. 
J. Horace Myers was his name, and he said he 
was a friend of the Topladys, and he was staying 
with them while he made choice art photo- 
graphs of the whole section; and he wanted 
to take a picture of my house. He was a dapper 
little man, but awful tired-seeming, so I told 
him to take the picture and welcome, and I 
put the stone dog on the front porch and looped 
the parlour curtains over again and started off 
for the meeting. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 209 

"*ril be up to show you the proofs in a few 
days/ he says as I was leaving. He was fixing 
the black cloth over his head, kind of listless 
and patient. 

"*Land!' I says, before I knew it, Mon't 
you get awful sick of takin' pictures of humbly 
houses you don't care nothin' about ?' 

"He peeked out from under the black cloth 
sort of grateful. *I do,' he says, simple, — 
*sick enough to bust the camera.' 

"*Well, I should think you would,' I says 
hearty; and I went down Daphne Street with 
the afternoon kind of feeling tarnished. I was 
wondering how on earth folks go on at all that 
dislikes their work like that. There was Abe 
Luck, just fixing the Sykes's eaves-trough — 
what was there to like about fixing eaves- 
troughs and about the whole hardware business ? 
Jimmy Sturgis coming driving the 'bus, Eppleby 
Holcomb over there registering deeds. Mis' 
Sykes's girl Em'ly washing windows, — what 
was there about any of it to like doing ? I 
looked at Mis' Sykes's Em'ly real pitying, 
polishing panes outside, when Abe Luck come 
climbing down the ladder from the roof; and 
all of a sudden I see Abe stick his head through 
the rungs, and quick as a flash kiss Mis' Sykes's 
Em'ly. 
9 



210 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"'My land !' I started to think, 'Mis' Sykes 
had ought to discharge — ' and then I just 
stopped short off, sudden. Her hating windows, 
and him hating eaves-troughs, and what else 
did either of them have ? Nothing. I could 
sense their lives like I could sense my own — 
level and even and darn. And all at once I had 
all I could do to keep from being glad that 
Abe Luck had kissed Em'ly. And I walked 
like lightning to keep back the feeling. 

"Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady was to the 
post-office store before me. It was a slack time 
of day, and Silas set down on a mail-bag and 
begun outlining the situation that he meant 
about. 

"'The School Board,' says Silas, important, 
'has got some women's work they want done. 
It's a thing,' s'he, 'that women can do the best — 
I mean it's the girls an' boys, hangin' round 
evenin's — you know we've all talked about it. 
But somebody's got to get after 'em in earnest, 
an' see they don't disgrace us with their carryin' 
on in the streets, evenin's.' 

"'Why don't the men do it.?' I ask' him, 
wonderin', 'or is it 'count of offending some ?', 

"'No such thing!' says Silas, touchy. 
'Where's your delicate feelin's. Calliope ? Wo- 
men can do these things better than men. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 211 

This is somethin' delicate, that had ought to 
be seen to quiet. It ain't a matter for the au- 
thorities. It's women's work,' says he. *It's 
women that's the mothers — it ain't the men,' 
says Silas, convincing. 

' "But still I looked at him, real meditative. 
*What started you men off on that tack at this 
time ? ' I ask' him, blunt — because young folks 
had been flooding the streets evenings since I 
could remember, and no Friendship Village man 
had ever acted like this about it. 

"*Well,' says Silas, Mon't you women tell 
it out around. But the thing that's got us 
desperate is the schoolhouse. The entry to 
it — they've used it shameful. Peanut shucks, 
down-trod popcorn, paper bags, fruit peelin's 
— every mornin' the stone to the top o' the 
steps, under the archway, is full of 'em. An' 
last week the Board went up there early mornin' 
to do a little tinkerin', an' there set three beer 
bottles, all empty. So we've figgered on puttin' 
some iron gates up to the schoolhouse^ entry 
an' appointin' you women a Vigilance Com- 
mittee to help us out.' 

"We felt real indignant about the school- 
house. It stands up a little slope, and you 
can see it from 'most anywheres daytimes, 
and we all felt kind of an interest — though 



212 MOTHERS TO MEN 

of course the School Board seemed to own it 
special. 

"Mis' Toplady looked warm and worried. 
*But what is it you want we should do, Silas ?' 
she ask', some irritable. ^IVe got my hands 
so full o' my own family it don't seem as if 
I could vigilance for nobody.' 

"*S-h-h, Mis' Toplady. / think it's a great 
trust,' says Mis' Silas Sykes. 

"*It is a great trust,' says Silas, warm, 
*to get these young folks to stop gallivantin' 
an' set home where they belong.' 

"*How you going to get them to set home, 
Silas ?' I ask', some puzzled. 

"^Well,' says Silas, * that's where they ought 
to be, ain't it ? ' 

"^Why,' I says thoughtful, *I donno's they 
had.' 

^^^What?^ says Silas, with horns on the word. 
*What say. Calliope ?' 

"*How much settin' home evenings did you 
do when you was young, Silas ? ' I says. 

"*rd 'a' been a long sight better off if I'd 
'a' done more of it,' says Silas. 

"^However that is, you didnH set home,' 
I says back at him. * Neither will young folks 
set there now, I don't believe.' 

*Well,' says Silas, ^ anyhow y they've got to 



it 



MOTHERS TO MEN 213 

get off'n the streets. WeVe made up our 
minds to that. They can't set on steps nor 
in stairways down town, nor in entries, nor to 
the schoolhouse. WeVe got to look out for 
public decency.' 

^^^ Public decency,' says I, again. *They can 
do what they like, so's public decency ain't 
injured, I s'pose, Silas ?' 

"*No such thing!' shouts Silas. * Calliope, 
take shame ! Ain't we doin' our best to start 
'em right ?' 

"^That's what I donno,' I answers him, 
troubled. * Driving folks around don't never 
seem to me to be a real good start towards 
nowheres.' 

"Mis' Amanda Toplady hitched forward 
in her chair and spoke for the first time — pon- 
derous and decided, but real sweet, too. *What 
I think is this,' she says. *They won't set 
home, as Calliope says. And when we've 
vigilanced 'em off the streets, where are we 
goin' to vigilance 'em to?^ 

That ain't our lookout,' says Silas. 
Aint' it ?' says Mis' Toplady. 'AinH it? ' 
She set thinking for a minute and then her face 
smoothed. ^Anyhow,' she says, comfortable, 
*us ladies'U vigilance awhile. It ain't clear in my 
mind yet what to do. But we'll do it, I guess.' 



in 



214 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"We made up that we three should come 
down town one night that week and look around 
and see what we see. We all knew — every 
woman in Friendship Village knew — how even- 
ings, the streets was full of young folks, loud 
talking and loud laughing and carrying on. 
We'd all said to each other, helpless, that we 
zvisht something could be done, but that was as 
far as anybody'd got. So we made it up that 
we three should be down town in a night or 
two, so's to get our ideas started, and Silas 
was to have Timothy Toplady and Eppleby 
Hoi comb, that's on the School Board, down 
to the store so we could all talk it over together 
afterwards. But still I guess we all felt sort 
of vague as to what we was to drive at. 

"^It seems like Silas wanted us to unwind 
a ball o' string from the middle out,' says Mis' 
Toplady, uneasy, when we'd left the store. 

"A few days after that Minerva come. I 
went down to the depot to meet her, and I 
would of reco'nized her anywheres, she looked so 
much like her handwriting. She was dressed 
sort of tawdry swell. She had on a good deal. 
But out from under her big hat with its cheap 
plume that was goin' to shed itself all over the 
house, I see her face was little and young and 
some pretty and excited. Excited about life 



MOTHERS TO MEN 215 

and new things and moving around. I liked her 
right off. ^Land!' thinks I, ^you'll try me to 
death. But, you poor, nice little thing, you 
can if you want to.' 

"I took her home to supper. She talked 
along natural enough, and seemed to like every- 
thing she et, and then she wiped the dishes for 
me, and looked at herself in the clock looking- 
glass all the while she was doing it. Then, when 
I'd put out the milk bottles, we locked up the 
back part of the house and went and set in the 
parlour. 

"I'd always thought pretty well of my par- 
lour. It hasn't anything but a plush four- 
piece set and an ingrain and Nottinghams, but 
it's the parlour y and I'd liked it. But when 
we'd been setting there a little while, and I'd 
asked her about everybody, and showed her 
their pictures in the album, all of a sudden it 
seemed as if they wasn't anything to do in the 
parlour. Setting there and talking was nice, 
but I missed something. And I thought of 
this first when Minerva got up and walked kind 
of aimless to the window. 

"^How big is Friendship Village?' she ask'. 

"I told her, real proud. 

"*They can't be a great deal goin' on here, 
is they ?' she says. 



2i6 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"*Land, yes !' I says. * We're so busy we're 
nearly dead. Ladies' Aid, Ladies' Missionary, 
Cemetery Improvement Sodality, the rummage 
sale coming on, the bazaar, and I donno what 
all/ 

" * Oh,' she says, vague. * Well — is they many 
young people ? ' 

"And when I'd told her, * Quite a few,' she 
didn't say anything more — but just stood 
looking down the street. And pretty soon I 
says, *Land ! the parlour's kind o' stuffy to- 
night. Let's go out in the yard.' And when 
we'd walked around out there a minute, smell- 
ing in my pinks, I thought, * Land ! it's kind 
o' dreary doin' this,' an' I says to her all of a 
sudden, * Let's go in the house and make some 
candy.' 

*0h, lefsj^ she says, like a little girl. 
We went back in and lit the kitchen fire, 
and made butter-scotch — she done it, being 
real handy at it. She livened up and flew 
around and joked some, and the kitchen looked 
nice and messy and used, and we had a real 
good time. And right in the midst of it there 
come a rap at the side door and' there stood the 
dapper, tired-looking little photograph man, 
J. Horace Myers, seeming as discouraged as he 
could. 






MOTHERS TO MEN 217 

"We spread out the proofs of the pictures of 
my house and spent some time deciding. And 
while we was deciding, he showed us some more 
pictures that he'd made of the town, and talked 
a little about them. He was a real pleasant, 
soft-spoken man, and he knew how to laugh and 
when to do it. He see the funny in things — 
he see that the post-office looked like a rabbit 
with its ears up ; he see that the engine-house 
looked like it was lifting its eyebrows ; and he 
see the pretty in things, too — he showed us a 
view or two he'd took around Friendship Village 
just for the fun of it. One was Daphne Street, 
by the turn, and he says : ^It looks like a deep 
tunnel, don't it ? An' like you wanted to go 
down it ? ' He was a wonderful nice, neutral 
little man, and I enjoyed looking at his pictures. 

" But Minerva — I couldn't help watching 
her. She wasn't so interested in the pictures, 
and she wasn't so quick at seeing the funny in 
things, nor the pretty, either ; but even the candy 
making hadn't livened her up the way that little 
talking done. She acted real easy and told some 
little jokes ; and when the candy was cool, she 
passed him some ; and I thought it was all right 
to do. And he sort of spruced up and took 
notice and quit being so down-in-the-mouth. 
And I thought, ' Land ! ain't it funny how just 



2i8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

being together makes human beings, be they 
agent or be they cousin, more themselves than 
they was before ! ' 

"Her liking company made me all the more 
sorry to leave Minerva alone that next evening, 
that was the night Mis' Sykes and Mis' Toplady 
and I was due to a tableau of our own in the 
post-office store. It was the night when the 
Vigilance Committee was to have its first real 
meeting with the School Board. But I lit the 
lamp for Minerva in the parlour, and give her 
the day's paper, and she had her sewing, and 
when Mis' Toplady and Mis' Sykes come for me, 
I went oAl and left her setting by the table. My 
parlour had been swept that day, and it was real 
tidy and quiet and lamp-lit ; and yet when Mis' 
Toplady and Mis' Sykes and I stepped out into 
the night, all smelling of pinks and a new moon 
happening, and us going on that mission we 
wasn't none of us sure what it was, the dark and 
the excitement sort of picked me up and I felt 
like I never felt in my parlour in my life — all 
kind of young and free and springy. 

"^ Let's us walk right down through town 
first,' says Mis' Toplady. ^That's where the 
young folks gets to, seems though.' 

"*Well-a, I don't see the necessity of that,' 
says Mis' Sykes. ^ We've all three done that 



MOTHERS TO MEN 219 

again and again. We know how it is down 
there evenings.' 

"^But/ says Mis' Toplady, in her nice, stub- 
born way, * let's us, anyway. I know, when I 
walk through town nights, I'm 'most always 
hurrying to get my yeast before the store shuts, 
an' I never half look around. To-night let's 
look.^ 

"Well, we looked. Along by the library 
windows in some low stone ledges. In front of a 
store or two they was some more. Around the 
corner was a place where they was some 
new tombstones piled up, waiting for their 
folks. And half a block down was the canal 
bridge. And ledges and bridge and tombstones 
and streets was alive with girls and boys — 
little young things, the girls with their heads tied 
in bright veils and pretty ribbons on them, and 
their laughs just shrilling and thrilling with the 
sheer fun of hanging around on a spring night. 

"*Land!' says Mis' Sykes, ^what is their 
mothers thinkin' of ? ' 

But something else was coming home to me. 
* I dunno,' I says, kind of scairt at the way I 
felt, *if I had the invite, this spring night, all 
pinks and new moons, I donno but I'd go and 
hang over a tombstone with 'em!' 

Calliope ! ' says Mis' Sykes, sharp. But Mis' 






Hi 



220 MOTHERS TO MEN 

Toplady, she kind of chuckled. And the crowd 
jostled us — more young folks, talking and laugh- 
ing and calling each other by nicknames, and we 
didn't say no more till we got up in the next 
block. 

"There's a vacant store there up towards 
the wagon shop, and a house or two, and that's 
where the open stairways was that Silas meant 
about. Everything had been shut up at six 
o'clock, and there, sure as the world, 'most every 
set of steps and every stairway had its couple, 
sitting and laughing and talking, like the place 
was differ'nt sofas in a big drawing-room, or 
rocks on a seashore, or like that. 

"* Mercy!' says Mis' Sykes. ^Such goin'- 
ons ! Such bringin'-ups ! ' 

"Just then I recollect I heard a girl laugh out, 
pretty and pleased, and I thought I recognized 
Mis' Sykes's Em'ly's voice, and I thought I 
knew Abe Luck's answering — but I never said 
a word to Mis' Sykes, because I betted she 
wouldn't get a step farther than discharging 
Em'ly, and I was after more steps than that. 
And besides, same minute, I got the scent of the 
Bouncing Bet growing by the wagon shop ; and 
right out of thin air, and acrost more years than 
I like to talk about, come the quick little feeling 
that made me know the fun, the sheer furiy that 



MOTHERS TO MEN 221 

Em'ly thought she was having and that she had 
the right to. 

"*0h, well, whoever it is, maybe theyVe en- 
gaged,* says Mis' Toplady, soothin'. 

"^Oh, but the bad taste!' says Mis' Sykes, 
shuddering. Mis' Sykes is a good cook and a 
good enough mother, and a fair-to-middling 
housekeeper, but she looks hard on the fringes 
and the borders of this life, and to her *good 
taste' is both of them. 

"They wasn't nobody on the wagon shop 
steps, for a wonder, and we set down there for a 
minute to talk it over. And while Mis' Toplady 
and Mis' Sykes was having it out between them, 
I set there a-thinking. And all of a sudden 
the night sort of stretched out and up, and I 
almost felt us little humans crawling around 
on the bottom of it. And one little bunch of 
us was Friendship Village, and in Friendship Vil- 
lage some of us was young. I kind of saw the 
whole throng of them^ — the young humans 
that would some day be the village. There they 
was, bottled up in school all day, or else boxed 
in a store or a factory or somebody's kitchen, 
and when night come, and summer come, and the 
moon come — land, land ! they wanted some- 
thing, all of them, and they didn't know what 
they wanted. 



222 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"And what had they got ? There was the 
streets stretching out in every direction, each 
house with its parlour — four-piece plush set, 
mebbe, and ingrain and Nottinghams, and mebbe 
not even that, and mebbe the rest of the family 
flooding the room, anyway. And what was the 
parlour, even with somebody to set and talk to 
them — what was the parlour, compared to the 
magic they was craving and couldn't name ? The 
feeling young and free and springy, and the 
wanting somehow to express it ? Something to 
do, somewheres to go, something to see, some- 
body to be with and laugh with — no wonder they 
swept out into the dark in numbers, no wonder 
they took the night as they could find it. They 
didn't have no hotel piazza of their own, no boat- 
rides, no seashore, no fine parties, no automobiles 
— no nothing but the big, exciting dark that be- 
longs to us all together. No wonder they took 
it for their own. 

"Why, Friendship Village was no more than a 
great big ball-room with these young folks leaving 
the main floor and setting in the alcoves, to un- 
seen music. If the alcoves had been all palms 
and expense and dressed-up chaperons on the 
edges, everything would of seemed right. As 
it was, it was all a danger that made my heart 
ache for them, and for us all. And yet it come 



MOTHERS TO MEN 223 

from their same longing for fun, for joy — and 
where was they to get it ? 

"*0h, ladies !' I says, out of the fulness of the 
lump in my throat, * if only we had some place to 
invite 'em to ! ' 

"*They wouldn't come if we had,' says Mis' 
Sykes, final. 

"^Not come!' I says. 'With candy making 
and pictures and music and mebbe dancin' ? 
Not come!' 

"'Dancin'!' says Mis' Toplady, low. *0h. 
Calliope, I donno as I'd go that far.' 

"'We've went farther than that long ago,' I 
says, reckless. 'We've went so far that the 
dangers of dancin' would be safe beside the dan- 
gers of what is.' 

'"But we ain't responsible for that,' says Mis' 
Sykes. 

'"Ain't we — ainH we?^ I says, like Mis' 
Toplady had. ' Mis' Sykes, how much does Silas 
rent the post-office hall for, a night ? ' 

"'Ten dollars, if he makes something; and 
five dollars at cost,' she says. 

'"That's it,' I says, groaning. 'We never 
could afford that, even to ask them in once a 
week. Oh, we'd ought to have some place open 
every night for them, and us ladies take turns 
doing the refreshments ; but they ain't no place 
in town that belongs to young folks — ' 



224 MOTHERS TO MEN 

*^And all of a sudden I stopped, like an idee 
had took me from all four sides of my head at 
once. 

"*Why, ladies/ I says, Mook at the school- 
house, doing nothing every night out of the 
year and built for the young folks ! ' 

"^Oh, well,' says Mis' Sykes, superior, 'you 
know the Board'd never allow 'em to use the 
schoolhouse that way. The Board wouldn't 
think of it ! ' 

^'' Whose Board?' says I, stem. * Ain't they 
our Board ? Yours and mine and Friendship 
Village's ? Come on — come on and put it to 
'em,' I says, kind o' wild. 

" I was climbing down the steps while I spoke. 
And we all went down, me talking on, and Mis' 
Toplady catching fire on the minute, an' Mis' 
Sykes holding out like she does unless so be she's 
thought of an idea herself. But oh. Mis' Top- 
lady, she's differ'nt. 

"* Goodness alive !' she said, 'why ain't some 
of us thought o' that before ? Ain't it the fun- 
niest thing, the way folks can have a way out 
right under their noses, an' not sense it ? ' 

" I had never had a new-bom notion come into 
my head so ready-made. I could hardly talk it 
fast enough, and Mis' Toplady same way, and we 
hurried back to the post-office store, Mis' Sykes 



MOTHERS TO MEN 225 

not convinced but keeping still because us two 
talked it so hard. 

" Silas and Timothy and Eppleby Holcomb 
was setting in the back part of the post-office 
store waiting for us, and Mis' Toplady and I 
hurried right up to them. 

"'You tell, Calliope,' says Mis' Toplady. 
*It's your idee.' 

" But first we both told, even Mis' Sykes 
joining in, shocked, about the doorway carryin' 
ons and all the rest. *Land, land!' Mis' Top- 
lady says, 'I never had a little girl. I lost my 
little girl baby when she was eleven months. 
But I ain't never felt so like shieldin^ her from 
somethin' as I feel to-night.' 

" * It's awful, awful ! ' says Timothy Toplady, 
decided. * We've just got to get some law goin', 
that's all.' 

"Silas agreed, scowling judicial. 'We been 
talkin' curfew,' he says. 'I donno but we'll hev 
to get the curfew on 'em.' 

"'Curfew!' says I. 'So you're thinking of 
curfewin' 'em off the streets. Will you tell 
me, Silas Sykes, where you're going to curfew 
'em to?' 

"'Yes,' says Mis' Toplady, 'that's what I 
meant about vigilancin' 'em off somewheres. 
Where to? What say, Silas ?' 

Q 



226 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"^That ain't our concern, woman!* shouts 
Silas, exasperated by us harping on the one 
string. *Them young folks has all got one or 
more parents. Leave 'em use 'em.' 

"^Yes, indeed,' says Mis' Sykes, nodding 
once, with her eyes shut brief. *An' young 
people had ought to be encouraged to do evening 
studvin'.' 

"Mis' Toplady jerked her head sideways. 
* Evenin' fiddlestick ! ' she snaps, direct. ^ If 
you've got a young bone left in your body. Mis' 
Sykes,' says she, ^you know you're talkin' non- 
sense.' 

"^ Ain't you no idees about how well-bred 
young ladies should conduct themselves ? ' says 
Mis' Sykes, in her most society way. 

"*I donno so much about well-bred young 
ladies,' says Mis' Toplady, frank. *I was think- 
in' about just girls. Human girls. An' boys the 
same.' 

*Me, too,' I says, fervent. 
What you goin' to do?^ says Silas, spreading 
out his hands stiff and bowing his knees. ^ What's 
your idee ? You've got to have a workin' idee 
for this thing, same as the curfew is.' 

"*0h, Silas,' I says then, * that's what we've 
got — that's what we've got. Them poor young 
things wants a good time — same as you and all 






MOTHERS TO MEN 227 

of us did, and same as we do yet. Why not give 
'em a place to meet and be together, normal and 
nice, and some of us there to make it pleasant 
for 'em ?' 

"*Heh!' says Silas. ^You talk like a dook. 
Where you goin* to get a place for 'em ? Hire the 
opery-house, air ye ?' 

"*No, sir,' I says to him. 'Give 'em the place 
that's theirs. Give 'em the schoolhouse, open 
evenings, an' all lit up an' music an' things 
doin'.' 

"'My Lord heavens!' says Silas, that's an 
elder in the church and ain't no more control of 
his tongue than a hen. 'Air you crazy. Calliope 
Marsh ? Plump, stark, starin' ravin' — why, 
woman alive, who's goin' to donate the light an' 
the coal ? You?^ 

" 'I thought mebbe the building and the School 
Board, too, was for the good o' the young folks,' 
I says to him, sharp. 

"'So it is,' says Silas, 'it's for their good. It 
ain't for their foolishness. Can't you see day- 
light. Calliope ? ' 

'"Is arithmetic good an' morals not^ Silas 
Sykes ?' I says. 

"Then Timothy Toplady let loose : 'A school- 
buildin'. Calliope,' s'he, — 'why, it's a dignified 
place. They must respect it, same as they would 




228 MOTHERS TO MEN 

a church. Could you learn youngsters the Con- 
stitution of the United States in a room where 
they'd just been cookin' up cough drops an' 
hearin' dance tunes ?' 

"*Well/ says I, calm, ^if you can't, I'd leave 
the Constitution of the United States go. If 
it's that delicate,' I says back at him, * gimme 
the cough drops.' 

"* You're talkin' treason,' says Silas, hoarse. 

"Timothy groans. ^Dancin!^ he says. 

* Amanda,' he says, *I hope you ain't sunk so low 
as Calliope ? ' 

" Mis' Toplady wavered a little. She's kind of 
down on dancing herself. ^ Well,' she says, * any- 
how, I'd fling "^ome place open and invite 'em 
in for somethin\'* 

"^/ ain't for this, Silas,' says Mis' Sykes, 
righteous. V believe the law is the law, and 
we'd best use it. Nothin' we can do is as good 
as enforcin' the dignity of the law.' 

"^Oh, rot!^ says Eppleby Hoi comb, abrupt. 
Eppleby hadn't been saying a word. But he 
looked up from the wood-box where he was set- 
ting, and he wrinkled up his eyes at the corners 
the way he does — it wasn't a real elegant word 
he picked, but I loved Eppleby for that ^rot.' 

* Asking your pardon. Mis' Sykes,' he says, *I 
ain't got so much confidence in enforcin' the law 



MOTHERS TO MEN 229 

as I've got in edgin' round an' edgin' round ac- 
cordin' to your cloth — an' your pattern. An' 
your pattern.' 

"^Lord heavens!' says Silas, looking glassy, 
Sf this was Roosia, you an' Calliope'd both be 
hoofin' it hot-foot for Siberia.' 

"Well, it was like arguing with two trees. 
They wasn't no use talking to either Silas or 
Timothy. I forget who said what last, but the 
meeting broke up, after a little, some strained, 
and we hadn't decided on anything. Us ladies 
had vigilanced one night to about as much 
purpose as mosquitoes humming. And I said 
good night to them and went on up street, won- 
dering why God lets a beautiful, burning plan 
come waving its wings in your head and your 
heart if he don't intend you to make a way for 
yourself to use it. 

"Then, by the big evergreens a block or so 
from my house, I heard somebody laugh — a 
little, low, nice, soft, sort of foolish laugh, a 
woman's laugh, and a man's voice joined in 
with it, pleasant and sort of singing. I was right 
onto them before they see me. 

"^I thought it was a lonesome town,' says 
somebody, *but I guess it ain't.' 

"And there,' beside of me, sitting on the rail 
fence under the evergreens, was Minerva Beach, 



230 MOTHERS TO MEN 

my own cousin, and the little, tired photograph- 
taking man. I had just bare time to catch my 
breath and to sense where the minute really 
belonged — that's always a good thing to do, 
ain't it ? — and then I says, cool as you please : 

"'Hello, Minerva! My! ain't the night 
grand ? I don't wonder you couldn't stay in 
the house. How do, Mr. Myers ? I was 
just remembering my lemon-pie that won't be 
good if it sets till to-morrow. Come on in and 
let's have it, and make a little lemonade.' 

** Ordinarily, I think it's next door to immoral 
to eat lemon-pie in the evening; but I had to 
think quick, and it was the only thing like a 
party that I had in the butt'ry. Anyhow, I 
was planning bigger morals than ordinary, too. 

"Well, sir, I'd been sure before, but that made 
me certain sure. There had been my parlour 
and my porch, and them two young people was 
welcome to them both ; but they wanted to go 
somewheres, natural as a bird wanting to fly or 
a lamb to caper. And there I'd been living 
in Friendship Village for sixty years or so, and 
I'd reco'nized the laws of housekeeping and 
debt paying and grave digging and digestion, 
and I'd never once thought of this, that's as 
big as them all. 

"Ain't it nice the way God has balanced 



MOTHERS TO MEN 231 

towns ! He never puts in a Silas Sykes that he 
don't drop in an Eppleby Holcomb somewheres 
to undo what the Silases does. It wasn't much 
after six o'clock the next morning, and I was out 
after kindling, when they come a shadow in the 
shed door, and there was Eppleby. He had a big 
key in his hand. 

"*I'm a-goin' to the City, Calliope,' says he. 

* Silas an' Timothy an' I are a-goin' up to the 
City on the Dick Dasher ' (that's our daily ac- 
commodation train, named for the engineer). 

* Silas and Timothy is set on buying the iron gates 
for the schoolhouse entry, an' I'm goin' along. 
He put the key in my hand, meditative. *We 
won't be back till the ten o'clock Through,' he 
says, * an' I didn't know but you might want to 
get in the schoolhouse for somethin' to-night — 
you an' Mis' Toplady.' 

"I must of stood staring at him, but he 
never changed expression. 

"*The key had ought to be left with some 
one, you know,' he says. *I'm leavin' it with 
you. You go ahead. I'll go snooks on the 
blame. I^ooks like it was goin' to be another nice 
day, don't it ? ' he says, casual, and went off down 
the path. 

" For a minute I just stood there, staring down 
at the key in my hand. And then, * Eppleby,' I 



232 MOTHERS TO MEN 

sings after him, *oh, Eppleby/ I says, *I feel 
just like I was going to crowT 

"I don't s'pose I hesitated above a minute. 
That is, my head may have hesitated some, like 
your head will, but my heart went right on 
ahead. I left my breakfast dishes standing — 
a thing I do for the very few — and I went 
straight for Mis' Toplady. And she whips off her 
big apron and left her dishes standing, an' off we 
went to the half a dozen that we knew we could 
depend on — Abagail Arnold, that keeps the 
home bakery, Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame- 
Bliss, Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, that's going to 
be married again and has got real human tow- 
ards other folks, like she wasn't in her mourning 
grief — we told 'em the whole thing. And we 
one and all got together and we see that here was 
something that could be done, right there and 
then, so be we was willing to make the effort, 
big enough and unafraid. 

"When I remember back, that day is all of a 
whirl to me. We got the notice in the daily 
paper bold as a lion, that there would be a party 
to the schoolhouse that night, free to every- 
body. We posted the notice everywheres, and 
sent it out around by word of mouth. And 
when we'd gone too far to go back, we walked 
in on Mis' Sykes — all but Abagail, that had 



MOTHERS TO MEN 233 

pitched in to making the cakes — and we told her 
what we'd done, so she shouldn't have any of the 
blame. 

" She took it calm, not because calm is Chris- 
tian, I bet, but because calm is grand lady. 

"^It's what I always said,' says she, ^ would 
be the way, if the women run things.' 

"^Women don't run things,' says Mis' Top- 
lady, placid, *an' I hope to the land they never 
will. But I believe the time'U come when men 
an' women'll run 'em together, like the Lord 
meant, an' when women can see that they're 
mothers to all men an' not just to their little 
two-by-four families.' 

"^My duty to men is in my own home,' says 
Mis' Sykes, regal. 

"*So is mine,' says Mis' Toplady, 'for a be- 
ginning. But it don't stop in my wood box nor 
my clothes-basket nor yet in my mixin'-bowl.' 

'^We went off and left her — it's almost im- 
possible to federate Mis' Sykes into anything. 
And we went up to the building and made our 
preparations. And then we laid low for the 
evening, to see what it would bring. 

" I was putting on my hat that night in front 
of the hall-tree looking-glass when J. Horace 
Myers come up on the froiit porch to call for 
Minerva. He was all dressed up, and she come 



234 MOTHERS TO MEN 

downstairs in a little white dimity she had, 
trimmed with lace that didn't cost much of any- 
thing, and looking like a picture. They sat down 
on the porch for a little, and I heard them talking 
while I was hunting one o' my gloves. 

"* Ain't it the dandiest night ! ' says J. Horace 
Myers. 

"* Ain't it!' says Minerva. *I should say. 
My ! I'm glad I come to this town !' 

"* I'm awful glad you did, too,' says J. Horace. 
* I thought first it was awful lonesome here, but 
I guess — ' 

"* They 're goin' to have music to-night,' says 
Minerva, irrelevant. 

* Cricky ! ' says the little photograph man. 
Minerva had her arm around a porch post 
and she sort of swung back and forth careless, 
and — *My!' she said, *I just do love to go. 
Have you ever travelled anywheres ?' 

"^ Texas an' through there,' he says. 'I'm 
goin' again some day, when — ' 

"^I'm goin' West now,' says Minerva. 'I 
just can't stand it long in one place, unless,' she 
added, 'it's awful nice.' 

"I'd found my glove, but I recollect I stood 
still, staring out the door. I see it like I never 
see it before — They was living. Them two 
young things out there on my porch, and all the 






MOTHERS TO MEN ajs 

young folks of Friendship Village, they was 
just living — trying to find a future and 
a life of their own. They didn't know it. 
They thought what they wanted was a good time, 
like the pioneers thought they wanted adven- 
ture. But here they were, young pioneers 
of new villages, flocking together wherever they 
could, seeking each other out, just living. 
And us that knew, us that had had life, too, or 
else had missed it, we was just letting them 
live, haphazard. And us that had ought to of 
been mothers to the town young, no less than to 
our own young, had been leaving them live 
alone, on the streets and stairways and school 
entries of Friendship Village. 

"I know I fair run along the street to the 
schoolhouse. It seemed as if I couldn't get 
there quick enough to begin the new way, 

"The schoolhouse was lit up from cellar to 
garret and it looked sort of different and sur- 
prised at itself, and like it was sticking its head 
up. Maybe it sounds funny, but it sort of 
seemed to me the old brick building looked con- 
sciouSf and like it had just opened its eyes and 
turned its face to something. Inside, the music 
was tuning up, the desks that was only part 
screwed down had been moved back; in one 
of the recitation-rooms we'd got the gas plates 



236 MOTHERS TO MEN 

for the candy making, and Abagail was in there 
stirring up lemonade in a big crock, and the 
other ladies, with white aprons on, was bustling 
round seeing to cutting the cakes. 

"It wasn't a good seven-thirty before they 
begun coming in, the girls nipping in pretty 
dresses, the boys awkward and grinning, school- 
girls, shop-girls. Mis' Sykes's Em'ly an' Abe 
Luck and everybody — they come from all di- 
rections that night, I guess, just to see what it 
was like. 

"And when they got set down, I realized for 
the first time that the law and some of the 
prophets of time to come hung on what kind of 
a time they had that first night. 

"While I was thinking that, the music struck 
into a tune, hurry-up time, and before anybody 
could think it, there they were on their feet, one 
couple after another. And when the lilty sound 
of the dance and the sliding of feet got to going, 
like magic and as if they had dropped out of the 
walls, in come them that had been waiting 
around outside to see what we was really going 
to do. They come in, and they joined in and 
in five minutes the floor was full of them. And 
after being .boxed in the house all day, or 
bottled in shops or polishing windows or mending 
eaves-troughs or taking photographs of humbly 



MOTHERS TO MEN 237 

houses or doing I donno what-all that they didn't 
like, here they were, come after their good time 
and having it — and having it. 

Mis' Toplady was peeking through a crack 
in the recitation-room door. 

^^'Dancin*!^ she says, with a little groan. *I 
donno what my conscience'll say to me about 
this when it gets me alone.' 

"*Well,' says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame- 
Bliss, seeing to the frosting on the ends of her 
fingers, ^I feel like they'd been pipin' to me for 
years an' I'd never let 'em dance. An' now 
they're dancin' up here safe an' light an' with us. 
An' I'm glad of it, to my marrow.' 

" * I know,' says Mis' Toplady, wiping her eyes. 
*I donno but my marrow might get use' to it.' 

"Long about ten o'clock, when we'd passed 
the refreshments and everybody had carried 
their own plates back and was taking the candy 
out of the tins, I nudged Mis' Toplady and we 
slipped out into the schoolhouse entry and 
set down on the steps. We'd just heard the 
Through whistle, and we knew the School Board 
Iron Gate Committee was on it, and that they 
must of seen the schoolhouse lit from 'way acrost 
the marsh. Besides, T was counting on Eppleby 
to march them straight up there. 

"And so he done. Almost before I knew it 



238 MOTHERS TO MEN 

they stepped out onto us, setting there in the 
starlight. I stood up and faced them, not from 
being brave, but from intending to jump first. 

"* Silas and Timothy,' I says, * what's done is 
done, but the consequences ain't. The Women's 
Evening Vigilance Committee that you ap- 
pointed yourself has tried this thing, and now it's 
for us all to judge if it works.' 

"*Heh !' says Silas, showing his teeth. *Hed 
a little party, did you ? Thought you'd get up 
a little party an' charge it to the Board, did you ? 
Be su'prised, won't you, when you women get 
a bill for rent an' light for this night's perform- 
ance ? ' 

"'Real surprised,' I says, dry.. 

"'Amanda,' pipes up Timothy, 'air you a 
fool party to this fool doin's ?' 

"'Oh, shucks !' says Mis' Toplady, tired. 'I 
been doin' too real things to row, Timothy.' 

"'Nev' mind,' says Silas, pacific. 'When the 
new iron gates gets here for this here entry, 
we won't have no more such doin's as this. 
They're ordered,' says Silas, like a bombshell, 
'to keep out the hoodlums.' 

"Then Eppleby, that^ had been peeking 
through the schoolhouse window, whirled around. 

"'Yes,' says he. 'Let's put up the gates to 
keep out the hoodlums* But what you going 



MOTHERS TO MEN 339 

to do for the girls and boys of Friendship Village 
that ain't hoodlums ? What you goin' to do 
for them ? I want to tell you that I knew all 
about what was goin' on here to-night, and I give 
over the schoolhouse key myself. And now you 
look down there/ 

"It was Friendship Village he pointed to, 
laying all around the schoolhouse slope, little 
lights shining for homes. And Eppleby went on 
before Silas and Timothy could get the breath 
to reply: — 

"*The town's nothin' but roots^ is it?' Ep- 
pleby says. * Roots, sendin' up green shoots to 
the top o' this hill to be trained up here into some 
kind of shape to meet life. What you doin' to 
*em ? Buildin' 'em a great, expensive school- 
house that they use a few hours a day, part o' 
the year, an' the rest of the time it might as well 
be a hole in the ground for all the good it does 
anybody. An' here's the young folks, that you 
built it for chasin' the streets to let off the mere 
flesh-an'-blood energy the Lord has give to 'em. 
Put up your iron gates if you want to, but don't 
put 'em up till the evenin's over an' till there's 
been some sort o' doin's here like this to give 'em 
what's their right. Put up your iron gates, but 
shame on the schoolhouse that puts 'em up an' 
stops there ! Open the buildin' in the name 



240 MOTHERS TO MEN 

of public decency, but in the name of public 
decency, don't shut it up ! ' 

"Timothy was starting to wave his arms 
when Mis' Toplady stood up, quiet, on the bot- 
tom step. 

"* Timothy,' she says, *thirty-five years ago 
this winter you an' I was keepin' company. 
Do you remember how we done it ? Do you 
remember singin' school ? Do you remember 
spellin' school ? Did our straw ridin' an' sleigh 
ridin' to the Caledonia district schoolhouse for 
our fun ever hurt the schoolhouse, or do you 
s'pose we ever learnt any the less in it ? Well, 
I remember; an' we both remember; an' 
answer me this : Do you s'pose them young 
things in there is any difFer'nt than we was ? 
An' what's the sin an' the crime of what they're 
doin' now ? Look at 'em ! ' 

"She pushed open the door. But just while 
we was looking, the music struck up the *Home 
Sweet Home' waltz, and they all melted into 
dancing, the ladies in white aprons standing by 
the recitation-room doors looking on. 

" * Dancin^ ! ' says Timothy, shuddering — 
but looking, too. 

"*Yes,' says Amanda, brave as you please, 
* ain't it pretty ? Lots prettier than chasin' up 
an' down Daphne Street. What say, Timothy ?' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 241 

"Eppleby give Silas a little nudge. *Le's 
give it a trial,' he says. 'This is the Vigilance 
Committee's idee. Le's g;ive it a trial.' 

"Silas st(X>d bitin' the tail of his beard. 'Go 
on to destruction if you want to !' he says. 'I 
wash my hands of you ! ' 

'So do 1/ says Timothy, echoish, 'wash 



y 



mme. 



Eppleby took them both by the shoulders. 
'Well, then, go on inside a minute,' he says to 
'em. 'Don't let's leave 'em all think we got 
stole a march on by the women ! ' 

"And though it was that argument that made 
them both let Eppleby push them inside, still, 
when the door shut behind them, I knew there 
wasn't anything more to worry over. But me 
— I waited out there in the entry* till the waltz 
was through. And it was kind of like the village 
down there to the foot of the hill was listening, 
quiet, to great councils. 



**Up to Proudfit House the conservatory 
wasn't set aside from everyday living for just 
a place to be walked through and looked at 
and left behind for something better. It was 
a glass regular room, full of green, but not so 
full that it left you out of account. Willow 
chairs and a family of books and open windows 
into the other rooms made the conservatory all 
of a piece with the house, and at one end the tile 
was let go up in a big You-and-me looking fire- 
place, like a sort of shrine for fire, I use' to think, 
in the middle of a temple to flowers, and like 
both belonged to the household. 

**0n the day of the evening company at Proud- 
fit House Robin was sitting with a book in this 
room. Fd gone up that day to do what I could 
to help out, and to see to Christopher some. 
Him Fd put to taking his nap quite awhile be- 
fore, and I was fussing with the plants like I love 
to do — it seems as if while I pick oft dead leaves 
and give the roots a drink I was kind of doing 
their thinking for them. When I heard Alex 
Proudfit coming acrost the library, I started to 

a4a 



MOTHERS TO MEN 243 

go, but Robin says to me, * Don't go, Miss 
Marsh,' she says, 'stay here and do what you're 
doing — if you don't mind.' 

"'Land,' thinks I, turning back to the ferns, 
* never tell me that young ladies are getting more 
up-to-date in love than they use' to be. My 
day, she would of liked that they should be alone, 
so be she could manage it without seeming to.' 

" I donno but I'm foolish, but it always seems 
to me that a minute like that had ought to 
catch fire and leap up, like a time by itself. In 
all the relationships of men and women, it seems 
like no little commonplace time is so vital as the 
minute when the man comes into a room where 
a woman is a-waiting for him. There is about 
it something of time to be when he'll come, not to 
gloat over his day's kill, or to forget his day's care, 
but to talk with her about their day of hardy work. 
Habitual arriving in a room again and again for 
ever can never quite take off, seems though, the 
edge of that coming back to where she is. . . . 
. . . But somehow, that day, Alex Proudfit 
must have stepped through the door before the 
minute had quite caught fire, and Robin merely 
smiled up at him, calm and idle, from her low 
chair as he come to a chair beside her. 

"'Tea, Robin Redbreast,' says he, 'is going 
to be here in a minute, with magnificent maca^ 



244 MOTHERS TO MEN 

roons. But I think that you and I will have 
it by ourselves. Everybody is either asleep or 
pretending. Fm glad,' he tells her, * you're the 
sort that can do things in the evening without 
resting up for from nine to ten hours preceding.' 

"^Fm resting now,' Robin said; *this is quite 
heavenly — this green room.' 

"He looked at her, eager. *Do you like it ?' 
he asked. * I mean the room — the house ? ' 

"* Enormously,' she told him. *How could I 
help it ?' 

"*I wanted you to like it,' he says. *We shall 
not be here much, you know, but we shall be here 
sometimes, and I'm glad if you feel the feeling 
of home, even with all these people about. It's 
all going very decently for to-night, thanks to 
Mrs. Emmons. Not a soul that we really 
wanted has failed us.' 

* Except Mr. Insley,' Robin says. 
Except Insley,' Alex concedes, *and I own 
I can't make him out. Not because he didn't 
come here. But because he seems so enthusi- 
astic about throwing his life away. Very likely,' 
he goes on, placid, *he didn't come simply be- 
cause he wanted to come. Those people get 
some sort of mediaeval renunciation mania, I 
believe. Robin,' he went on, ^ where do you 
think you would like to live ? Not to settle 



a 6 






MOTHERS TO MEN 245 

down, you know, but for the Eternal Place To 
Come Back To ? ' 

^To come back to ?' Robin repeated. 
^The twentieth century^home is merely that, 
you know,' Alex explained. * We're just begin- 
ning to solve the home problem. WeVe tried 
to make home mean one place, and then we 
were either always wanting to get away for a 
while, or else we stayed dreadfully put, which 
was worse. But I think now we begin to see the 
truth : Home is nowhere. Rather, it is every- 
where. The thing to do is to live for two months, 
three months, in a place, and to get back to 
each place at not too long intervals. Home is 
where you like to be for the first two weeks. 
When that wears off, it's home no more. Then 
home is some other place where you think you'd 
like to be. We are becoming nomadic again — 
only this time we own the world instead of being 
at its feet for a bare living. You and I, Robin 
Redbreast, are going to be citizens of the whole 
world.' 

"Robin looked over at him, reflective. And 
it seemed to me as if the whole race of women 
that have always liked one place to get in and 
be in and stay in spoke from her to Alex. 

"*But I've always had a little garden,' she 
says. 



246 MOTHERS TO MEN 






*A little what ?' Alex asks, blank. 
*Why, a garden/ she explains, *to plant from 
year to year so that I know where things are 
going to come up/ 

"She was laughing, but I knew she meant 
what she said, too. 

"*My word,' Alex says, *why, every place we 
take shall have a garden and somebody to grub 
about in it. Won't those and the conservatories 
do you ?' 

" * I like to get out and stick my hands in the 
spring-smelly ground,' she explains, *and to 
remember where my bulbs are.' 

"^But I've no objection to bulbs,' Alex says. 
*None in the world. We'll plant the bulbs and 
take a run round the world and come back to 
see them bloom. No ?' 

"*And not watch them come up?' Robin 
says, so serious that they both laughed. 

"*We want more than a garden can give,' 
Alex says then, indulgent. * We want what the 
whole world can give.' 

" She nodded. * And what we can give back ? ' 
she says. 

"He leaned toward her, touched along her 
hair. 

"*My dear,' he said, * we've got two of us to 
make the most of we can in this life : that's you 



MOTHERS TO MEN 247 

and I. The world has got to teach us a number 
of things. Don't, in heaven's name, let's be 
trying to teach the wise old world.' 

**He leaned toward her and, elbow on his 
knee, he set looking at her. But she was look- 
ing a little by him, into the green of the room, 
and I guess past that, into the green of all 
outdoors. I got up and slipped out, without 
their noticing me, and I went through the 
house with one fact bulging out of the air and 
occupying my brain. And it was that sitting 
there beside him, with him owning her future 
like he owned his own, Robin's world was as 
different from Alex's as the world is from the 
Proudfits' conservatory. 

" I went up to Chris, in the pretty, pinky room 
next to Robin's and found him sitting up in bed 
and pulling the ties out of the down comforter, 
as hard as he could. I just stood still and 
looked at him, thinking how eating and drink- 
ing and creating and destroying seems to be the 
native instincts of everybody born. Destroy- 
ing, as I look at it, was the weapon God give 
us so that we could eat and drink and create 
the world in peace, but we got some mixed up 
during getting born and we got to believing that 
destruction was a part of the process. 

*** Chris,' I says, *what you pulling out?* 



248 MOTHERS TO MEN 



U 



*I donno those names of those,' he says. 'I 
call 'cm little pulls/ 

"*What are they for?' I ask' him. 

"*I donno what those are for,' he says, *but 
they come out slickery.^ 

** Ain't it funny ? And ain't it for all the world 
the way Nature works, destroying what comes 
out slickery and leaving that alone that resists 
her ? I was so struck by it I didn't scold him 
none. 

"After a while I took him down for tea. On 
the way he picked up a sleepy puppy, and in the 
conservatory door we met the footman with the 
little tea wagon and the nice, drowsy quiet of 
the house went all to pieces with Chris in it : — 

" * Supper, supper — here comes supper on a 
wagon, runnin' on litty wheels goin' wound an 
a-w-o-u-n-d — ' says he, some louder than 
saying and almost to shouting. He sat down 
on the floor and looked up expectant: 'Five 
lumps,' he orders, not having belonged to the 
house party for nothing. 

"*Tell us about your day, Chris,' Robin asks. 
'What did you do?' 

"'It isn't iy, is it ?' Chris says, anxious. 'To- 
day didn't stop yet, did it ? ' 

"'Not yet,' she reassures him. 'Now is still 
now.' 



^ 



MOTHERS TO MEN 249 

"*I want to-day to keep being now/ Chris 
said, ^ because when it stops, then the bed is right 
there. It don't be anywhere near to-night, is 
it ?' he says. 

"'Not very near,' Robin told him. 'Well, 
then, what are you doing to-day ? ' she asks. 

"Tm to the house's party,' he explained. 
'The house is having its party. An' I'm to it.' 

"'Do you like this house, dear ?' Robin asked. 
* " ' It's nice,' he affirmed. ' In the night it — it 
talks wiv its lights. I saw it. With my daddy. 
When I was off on a big road.' Chris looked at her 
intent, from way in his eyes. 'I was thinkin' if 
my daddy would come,' he says, patient. 

"Robin stoops over to him, quick, and he let 
her. He'd took a most tremendous fancy to her, 
the little fellow had, and didn't want her long out 
of his sight. 'Is that Robin ?' he always said, 
when he heard anybody coming from any di- 
rection. She give him a macaroon, now, for 
each hand, and he run away with the puppy. 
And then she turned to Alex, her face bright 
with whatever she was thinking about. 

"'Alex,' she says, 'he's a dear little fellow — 
a dear little fellow. And all alone. I've wanted 
so much to ask you : Can't we have him for 
ours ? ' 

"Alex looks at her, all bewildered up in a 



2SO MOTHERS TO MEN 

minute. *How ours V he asks. *Do you mean 
have him educated ? That, of course, if you 
really want it.* 

"*No, no/ she says. ^Ours. To keep with 
us, bring up, make. Let's let him be really 



ours.' 



a 



He just leaned back in the big chair, smiling 
at her, meditative. 

"*My dear Robin/ he says, 'it's a terrible 
responsibility to meddle that way with some- 
body's life.' 

"She looked at him, not understanding. 

" * It's such an almighty assumption,' he went 
on, *this jumping blithely into the office of 
destiny — keeping, bringing-up, making, as you 
say — meddling with, I call it — anybody's 
life.' 

"* Isn't it really meddling to let him be in a 
bad way when we can put him in a better one ?' 
she asked, puzzled. 

" * I love you, Robin,' says he, light, * but not 
for your logic. No, my dear girl. Assuredly 
we will not take this child for ours. What 
leads you to suppose that Nature really wants 
him to live, anyway ? ' 

"I looked at him over my tea-cup, and for 
my life I couldn't make out whether he was 
speaking mocking or speaking plain. 



MOTHERS TO MEN aji 



(CC 



If Chris is to be inebriate, criminal, vicious, 
even irresponsible, as his father must be,* Alex 
says, * Nature wants nothing of the sort. She 
wants to be rid of him as quickly as possible. 
How do you know what you are saving ?' 

"*How do you know,' Robin says, *what you 
are letting go ? ' 

"^I can take the risk if Nature can,* he con- 
tends. 

"She sat up in her chair, her eyes bright as 
the daylight, and I thought her eagerness and 
earnestness was on her like a garment. 

"*You have nobody to refer the risk to,' 
Robin says, * Nature has us. And for one, I 
take it. So far as Chris is concerned, Alex, 
if no one claims him, I want him never to be 
out of touch with me.' 

"But when a woman begins to wear that 
garment, the man that's in love with her — un- 
less he is the special kind — he begins thinking 
how much sweeter and softer and womaner she 
is when she's just plain gentle. And he always 
gets uneasy and wants her to be the gentle way 
he remembers her being — that is, unless he's 
special, unless he's special. Like Alex got 
uneasy now. 

"*My heavens, dear,' he says — and I judged 
Alex had got to be one of them men that lays a 



252 MOTHERS TO MEN 

lace *dear' over a haircloth tone of voice, and 
so solemnly believes they're keeping their tem- 
per — ^My heavens, dear, don't misunderstand 
me. Experiment as much as you like. Material 
is cheap and abundant. If you don't feel the 
responsibility, have him educated wherever 
you want to. But don't expect me to play 
father to him. The personal contact is going 
it a little too strong.' 

"^That is exactly what he most needs,' says 
Robin. 

"'Come, dear,' says Alex, * that's elemental — 
in an age when everybody can do things better 
than one can do them oneself.' 

"She didn't say nothing, and just set there, 
with her tea. Alex was watching her, and I 
knew just about as sure what he was thinking as 
though I had been his own thought, oozing 
out of his mind. He was watching her with 
satisfaction, patterned off with a kind of quiet 
amusement and jabbed into by a kind of worryin' 
wonder. How exactly, he was thinking, she was 
the type everlasting of Wife. She was girlish, 
and in little things she was all I'U-do-as-you-say, 
and she was even shy ; he believed that he was 
marrying a girl whose experience of the world 
was commendably slight, whose ideas about 
it was kind of vague — commendably again ; 



MOTHERS TO MEN 253 

and whose ways was easy-handled, like skein 
silk. By her little firmnesses, he see that she 
had it in her to be firm, but what he meant was 
that she should adopt his ideas and turn firm 
about them. He had it all planned out that 
he was going to embroider her brain with his 
notions of what was what. But all of a sudden, 
now and then, there she was confronting him as 
she had just done then with a serious, settled look 
of Woman — the Woman everlasting, wanting 
a garden, wanting to work, wanting a child . . . 

" In the doorway back of Alex, Bayless come 
in, carrying a tray, but it didn't have no card. 

" * It's somebody to speak with you a minute, 
Mr. Proudfit,' says Bayless. *It's Mr. Insley.' 

"*Have him come here,' Alex says. *I hope,' 
he says, when the man was gone, * that the poor 
fellow has changed his mind about our little 
festivities.' 

"Robin sort 01 tipped up her forehead. * Why 
poor?'* she asks. 

"*Poor,' says Alex, absent, * because he lives 
in a pocket of the world, instead of wearing the 
world like a garment — when it would fit him.' 

"I was just setting my tea-cup down when 
she answered, and I recollect I almost jumped : 

"*He knows something better to do with the 
world than to wear it at all,' was what she said. 



aS4 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"I looked over at her. And maybe it was 
because she was sort of indignant, and maybe it 
was because she thought she had dared quite a 
good deal, but all of a sudden something sort 
of seemed to me to set fire to the minute, and 
it leaped up like a time by itself as we heard 
Insley's step crossing the library and coming 
towards us. . . . 

"When he come out where we were, I see 
right off how pale he looked. Almost with his 
greeting, he turned to Alex with what he had 
come for, and he put it blunt. 

"*I was leaving the Cadozas' cottage on the 
Plank Road half an hour ago,' he said. *A little 
way along I saw a man, who had been walking 
ahead of me, stagger and sprawl in the mud. 
He wasn't conscious when I got to him. He was 
little — I picked him up quite easily and got him 
back into the Cadozas' cottage. He still wasn't 
conscious when the doctor came. He gave 
him things. We got him in bed there. And 
then he spoke. He asked us to hunt up a little 
boy somewhere in Friendship Village, who be- 
longed to him. And he said the boy's name was 
Chris.' 

" It seemed like it was to Alex Proudfit's inter- 
ested lifting of eyebrows rather than to Robin's 
exclamation of pity that Insley answered. 



MOTHERS TO MEN ajs 

**^rm sorry it was necessary to trouble you,' 
he says, *but Chris ought to go at once. I'll 
take him down now.' 

"*That man,' Robin says, Hhe father — 
is he ill ? Is he hurt ? How badly is he off ?' 

*^*He's very badly off,' says Insley, ^done for, 
I'm afraid. It was in a street brawl in the 
City — it's his side, and he's lost a good deal 
of blood. He walked all the way back here. 
A few hours, the doctor thought it would be, 
at most.' 

"Robin stood up and spoke like what she 
was saying was a take-for-granted thing. 

"*0h,' she says, *poor, poor little Chris. 
Alex, I must go down there with him,' 

"Alex looks over at her, incredulous, and spoke 
so: ^You ?' says he. ^Impossible,' 

"I was just getting ready to say that of course 
I'd go with him, if that was anything, when from 
somewheres that he'd gone with the puppy, 
Chris spied Insley, and come running to him. 

"^Oh, you are to the house's party, too!' 
Chris cried, and threw himself all over him. 

"Robin knelt down beside the child, and the 
way she was with him made me think of that 
first night when she see him at the church, and 
when her way with him made him turn to her 
and talk with her and love her ever since. 



2s6 MOTHERS TO MEN 



(Ci 



Listen, dear,' she said. *Mr. Insley came 
here to tell you something. Something about 
daddy — your daddy. Mr. Insley knows where 
he is, and he's going to take you to him. But 
he's very, very sick, dear heart — will you re- 
member that when you see him ? Remember 
Robin told you that ? ' 

"There come on his little face a look of being 
afraid that give it a sudden^ terrible grown-up- 
ness. 

"*Sick like my mama was ?' he asked in a 
whisper. * And will he go out, like my mama ? ' 

"Robin put her arm about him, and he turned 
to her, clung to her. 

" ' You come, too, Robin,' he said. * You come, 
too!' 

"She got up, meeting Alex's eyes with her 
straight look. 

" * I must go, Alex,' she said. ^He wants me — 
needs me. Why, how could I do anything else ? ' 

"Alex smiles down at her, with his way that 
always seemed to me so much less that of living 
every minute than of watching it live itself 
about him. 

"*May I venture to remind you,' he says — 
like a little thin edge of something, paper, maybe, 
that's smooth as silk, but that'll cut neat and 
deep if yojilet it — *May I venture to remind 



MOTHERS TO MEN 257 

you that your aunt is announcing our engage- 
ment to-night ? I think that will have escaped 
your mind/ 

"^Yes/ Robin says, simple, *it had. Every- 
thing had escaped my mind except this poor 
little thing here. Alex — it's early. He'll sleep 
after a little. But I must go down with him. 
What did you come in ? ' she asked Insley, quiet. 

"I told her Vd go down, and she nodded that 
I was to go, but Chris clung to her hand and it 
was her that he wanted, poor little soul, and only 
her. Insley had come up in the doctor's rig. 
She and I would join him with the child, she 
told him, at the side entrance and almost at 
once. There was voices in the house by then, 
and some of the young folks was coming down- 
stairs and up from the tennis-court for tea. 
She went into the house with Chris. And I 
wondered if she thought of the thing I thought 
of and that made me glad and glad that there 
are such men in the world : Not once, not once, 
out of some felt-he-must courtesy, had Insley 
begged her not to go with him. He knew that 
she was needed down there with Chris and him 
and me — he knew, and he wouldn't say she 
wasn't. Land, land I love a man that don't 
talk with the outside of his head and let what 
he means lay cramped somewheres underneath, 

8 



258 MOTHERS TO MEN 

but that reaches down and gets up what he 
means, and holds it out, for you to take or to 
leave. 

** Mis' Emmons was overseeing the decorations 
in the dining room. The whole evening party 
she had got right over onto her shoulders the 
way she does everything, and down to counting 
the plates she was seeing to it all. We found 
her and told her, and her pity went to the poor 
fellow down there at the Cadozas' almost before 
it went to Chris. 

" * Go, of course,' she said, T suppose Alex 
minds, but leave him to me. Fve got to be here 
— but it's not I Chris wants in any case. It's 
you. Get back as soon as you can, Robin,' 

"I must say Alex done that last minute right, 
the way he done everything, light and glossy. 
When Robin come down, I was up in the little 
seat behind the doctor's cart, and Alex stood 
beside and helped her. A servant, he said, 
would come on after us in the automobile with 
a hamper, and would wait at the Cadozas' 
gate until she was ready to come back. Some- 
how, it hadn't entered anybody's head, least 
of all, I guess, Alex's own, that he should come, 
too. He see us off with his manners on him 
like a thick, thick veil, and he even managed to 
give to himself a real dignity so that Robin 



MOTHERS TO MEN 259 

said her gcx>d-by with a kind of wistfulness, as 
if she wanted to be reassured. ^And I liked 
her the better for that. For, after all, she tvas 
going — there was no getting back of that. And 
when a woman is doing the right thing against 
sonxebody's will, Fm not the one to mind if 
she hangs little bells on herself instead of going 
off with no tinkle to leave herself be reminded 
of, pleasant. 

"We swung out onto the open road, with Chris 
sitting still between the two of them, and me on 
the little seat behind. The sunset was flowing 
over the village and glittering in unfamiliar fires 
on the windows. The time was as still as still, 
in that hour 'long towards night when the day 
seems to have found its harbour it has been look- 
ing for and to have slipped into it, with shut 
sails — so still that Robin spoke of it with sur- 
prise. I forget just what she said. She was 
one of them women that can say a thing so har- 
monious with a certain minute that you never 
wish sheM kept still. I believe if she spoke to 
me when I was hearing music or feeling lifted 
up all by myself, I wouldn't mind it. What 
she'd say would be sure to fit what was being. 
They ain't many folks in anybody's life like 
that. I believe she could talk to me any time, 
sole unless it's when I first wake up in the morn- 



26o MOTHERS TO MEN 

ing; then any talking always seems like some- 
body stumbling in, busy, among my sleeping 
brains. 

" For a minute Insley didn't say anything. I 
was almost sure he was thinking how unbeliev- 
able it was that he should be there, alone with 
her, where an hour ago not even one of his for- 
bidden dreams could have found him. 

"^Beautifully still,' he answered, 'as if all 
the things had stopped being, except some great 
thing.' 

"*I wonder,' she says, absent, 'what great 
thing.' And all the time she seemed sort of 
relaxed, and resting in the sense — though 
never in the consciousness — that the need to 
talk and to be talked to, to suggest and to ques- 
tion, had found some sort of quiet, levelling pro- 
cess with which she was moving along, assentin'. 

"Insley stooped down, better to shield her 
dress from the mud there was. I see him look 
down at her uncovered hands laying on the robe, 
and then, with a kind of surprise, up at her face ; 
and I knew how surprising her being near him 
seemed. 

"'That would be one thing for you,' he an- 
swered, ' and another for me.' 

" 'No,' she says, ' I think it's the same thing for 
us both.' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 261 

"He didn't let himself look at her, but his 
voice — well, I tell you, his voice looked. 

"*What do you mean?' he says — just said 
it a little and like he didn't dare trust it to say 
itself any more. 

"^Why, being able to help in this, surely,' 
she says. 

" I could no more of helped watching the two 
of them than if they had been angels and me 
nothing but me. I tried once or twice to look 
off across the fields that was smiling at each 
other, same as faces, each side of the road; 
but my eyes come back like they was folks 
and wanted to; and I set there looking at her 
brown hair, shining in the sun, without any hat 
on it, and at his still face that was yet so many 
kinds of alive. He had one of the faces that 
looked like it had been cut out just the way it 
was a-purpose. There wasn't any unintentional 
assembling of features there, part make-shift 
and part rank growth of his race. No, sir. 
His face had come to life by being meant to be 
just the way it was, and it couldn't have been 
better. ... It lit up wonderful when he 
answered. 

"^Yes,' he said, *a job is a kind of creation. 
It's next best to getting up a sunrise. Look 
here,' he remembered, late in the day, Vou'U 



%e% MOTHERS TO MEN 

have no dinner. You can't eat with them in 
that place. And you ought to have rest before 
to-night/ 

"Ain't it funny how your voice gets away 
from you sometimes and goes dilly-nipping 
around, pretty near saying things on its own 
account ? I use' to think that mebbe my voice 
didn't belong to the me I know about, but was 
some of the real me, inside, speaking out with 
my mouth for a trumpet, I donno but I think 
so yet. For sometimes your voice is a person 
and it says things all alone by itself. So his 
voice done then. The tender concern of it 
was pretty near a second set of words. It was 
the first time he had struck for her the great 
and simple note, the note of the caring of the 
man for the physical comfort of the woman. 
And while she was pretending not to need it, 
he turned away and looked off toward the village, 
and I was certain sure he was terrified at. what 
might have been in his voice. 

"*I like to think of it down there,' he said, 
pretty near at random, * waiting to be clothed 
in a new meaning.' 

"*The village ?' she asked. 

"^Everywhere,' he answered. *Some of the 
meanings we dress things up in are so — dowdy. 
We wouldn't think of wearing them ourselves.' 



\ 



\MOTHERS TO MEN 263 

"She understood him so well that she didn't 
have to bother to smile. And I hoped she 
was setting down a comparison in her head: 
Between clothing the world in a new meaning, 
and wearing it for a garment. 

"Chris looked up in Insley's face. 

"*rm new/ he contributes, ^Fm new on the 
outside of me. IVe got on this new brown 
middle.' 

"*IVe been admiring it the whole way,' says 
Insley, hearty — and that time his eyes and 
Robin's met, over the little boy's head^ as we 
stopped at the cottage gate. 



XI 



"The lonesome little parlour at Mis' Cadoza's 
was so far past knowing how to act with folks 
in it, that it never changed expression when we 
threw open the shutters. Rooms that are 
used to folks always sort of look up when the 
shutters are opened; some rooms smile back 
at you ; some say something that you just lose, 
through not turning round from the window 
quite quick enough. But Mis' Cadcza's parlour 
was such a poor folkless thing that it didn't 
make us any reply at all nor let on to notice 
the light. It just set there, kind of numb, 
merely enduring itself. 

"*You poor thing,' I thought, * nobody come 
in time, did they ? ' 

" Insley picked out a cane-seat rocker that had 
once known how to behave in company, and 
drew it to the window. Ain't it nice, no matter 
what kind of a dumb room you've got into, 
you can open its window and fit the sky onto 
the sill, and feel right at home. . . . 

"Robin sat there with Chris in her arms, 
waiting for any stir in the front bedroom. I 
went in the bedroom, while Dr. Heron told me 

264 



MOTHERS TO MEN 265 

about the medicine, and it seemed to me the bare 
floor and bare walls and dark-coloured bed- 

• 

covers was got together to suit the haggardy 
unshaven face on the pillow. Christopher^s 
father never moved. I set in the doorway, so 
as to watch him, and Insley went with the doctor 
to the village to bring back some things that 
was needed. And I felt like we was all the 
first settlers of somewheres. 

"Chris was laying so still in Robin's arms 
that several times she looked down to see if 
he was awake. But every time his eyes was 
wide and dark with that mysterious child look 
that seems so much like thought. It kind of 
hurt me to see him doing nothing — that's one 
of the parts about sickness and dying and some 
kinds of trouble that always twists something 
up in my throat : The folks that was so eager 
and able and flying round the house just being 
struck still and not able to go on with everyday 
doings. I know when Lyddy Ember, the dress- 
maker, died and I looked at her laying there, it 
seemed to me so surprising that she couldn't 
hem and fell and cut out with her thumb crooked 
like she done — and that she didn't know a 
dart from a gore; her hands looked so much 
like she knew how yet. It's like being inactive 
made death or grief double. And it's like work- 



266 MOTHERS TO MEN 

ing or playing around was a kind of life. . • • 
The whole house seemed inactive and silence- 
struck, even to the kitchen where Mis' Cadoza 
and the little lame boy was. 

"Robin set staring into the lilacs that never 
seemed to bloom, and I wondered what she was 
thinking and mebbe facing. But when she 
spoke, it was about the Cadoza kitchen. 

"*Miss Marsh,' she says, *what kind of people 
must they be that can stay alive in a kitchen 
like that ? ' 

"* Pioneers,' I says. *They's a lot of 'em 
pioneerin' away and not knowing it's time to 
stop.' 

"*But the dirt — ' she says. 

"^What do you expect?' I says. ^They're 
emergin' out of dirt. But they are emergin'.' 
Don't it seem hopeless ?' says she. 
Oh, I donno,' I says ; *dirt gets to be apples 
— so be you plant 'em.' 

"But the Cadoza kitchen was fearful. When 
we come through it. Mis' Cadoza was getting 
supper, and she'd woke up nameless smells of 
greasy things. There the bare table was piled 
with the inevitable mixrUp of unwashed dishes 
that go along with the Mis' Cadozas of this 
world, so that you wonder how they ever got 
so much crockery together. There the floor 









MOTHERS TO MEN 267 

wasn't swept, clothes was drying on a line over 
the stove, Spudge was eating his supper on the 
window-sill, and in his bed in the corner lay 
little Eph, so white and frail and queer-coloured 
that you felt you was looking on something 
bound not to last till much after you'd stopped 
looking. And there was Mis' Cadoza. When 
we had come through the kitchen, little Eph 
had said something glad at seeing Insley and 
hung hold of his hand and told him how he 
meant to model a clay Patsy, because it was 
Patsy, the dog, that had gone out in the dark 
and first brought Insley in to see him. 

"*An' when Fm big,' the child says, ^I'm 
going to make a clay youy Mr. Insley.' 

Mis' Cadoza had turned round and bared 
up her crooked teeth. 

"* Don't you be impident!' she had said, 
raspish, throwing her hand out angular. 

"Mis' Cadoza was like somebody that hadn't 
got outside into the daylight of Yft. She was 
ignorant, blind to life, with some little bit of a 
corner of her brain working while the rest lay 
stock-still in her skull; unclean of person, the 
mother to no end of nameless horrors of habit — 
and' her blood and the blood of some creature 
like her had been poured into that poor little 
boy, sickly, bloodless, not ready for the struggle. 



268 MOTHERS TO MEN 

" * Is there any use trying to do anything with 
anybody like that ? ' says Robin. 

" Vj there ?' says I, but I looked right straight 
at Christopher. If there wasn't no use trying 
to do anything with little Eph, with his mother 
out there in the kitchen, then* what was the 
use of trying to do anything with Chris, with 
his father here in the front bedroom ? Sick 
will, tainted blood, ruined body — to what 
were we all saving Chris ? Maybe to misery 
and final defeat and some awful going out. 

"*I don't know,' she says, restless. * Maybe 
Alex is right. . . . ' 

" She looked out towards the lilac bushes again, 
and I knew how all of a sudden they probably 
dissolved away to be the fine green in the con- 
servatory at Proudfit House, and how she was 
seeing herself back in the bright room, with its 
summer of leaves, and before the tea wagon, 
making tea for Alex lounging in his low chair, 
begging her not, in heaven's name, to try to 
teach the wise old world. . . . 

"... I knew well enough how she felt. 
Every woman in the world knows. In that 
minute, or I missed my guess, she was finding 
herself clinging passionate and rebellious to the 
mere ordered quiet of the life Alex would make 
for her ; to the mere outworn routine, the leisure 



MOTHERS TO MEN 269 

of long days in pretty rooms, of guests and 
house parties and all the little happy flummery 
of hospitality, the doing-nothingness, or the nice 
tasks, of travelling ; the joy of sinking down quiet 
into the easy ways to do and be. Something 
of the sheer, clear, mere self-indulgence of the 
last-notch conservative was sweeping over her, 
the quiet, the order, the plain safety of the 
unchanging, of going along and going along and 
leaving things pretty much as they are, expecting 
them to work themselves out . • . the lure of 
all keeping-stillness. And I knew she was 
wondering, like women do when they're tired or 
blue or get a big job to do or see a house like 
the Cadozas', why, after all, she shouldn't, in 
Alex's way, make herself as dainty in morals 
and intellect as she could and if she wanted to 
* meddle,' to do so at arm's length, with some 
of the material that is cheap and abundant — 
like Chris. . . . 

"* Maybe there isn't any use trying to do 
anything with Chris, either,' I says brutal. 
*Mebbe Nature's way is best. Mebbe she 
knows best when to let them die off.' 

"Robin's arms kind of shut up on the little 
kiddie. He looked up. 

"*Did you squeeze me on purpose?' he 
whispered. 



270 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"She nodded at him. 

"^Whatfor?'heasks. 

"*Just loving/ she answered. 

"After that, we sat still for a long time. 
Insley came back with the medicine, and told 
me what to do if the sick man came to. Then he 
filled and lit the bracket lamp that seemed to 
make more shadows than light, and then he 
stopped beside Robin — as gentle as a woman 
over a plant — and asked her if she wanted any- 
thing. He come through the room several 
times, and once him and her smiled, for a still 
greeting, almost as children do. After a while 
he come with a little basket of food that he had 
had Abagail put up to the bakery, and we tried 
to eat a little something, all of us. And all the 
while the man on the bed lay like he was locked 
up in some new, thick kind of silence. 

"When eight o'clock had gone, we heard 
what I had been expecting to hear — the first 
wheels and footsteps on the Plank Road directed 
towards Proudfit House. And Insley come in, 
and went over to Robin, and found Chris asleep 
in her arms, and he took him from her and laid 
him on the sagging Brussels couch. 

"*You must go now,' he says to Robin, with 
his kind of still authority that wan't ordering 
nor schoolmastery, nor you-do-as-I-say, but was 



MOTHERS TO MEN 271 

just something that made you want to mind 
him. *ril wake Chris and take him in at the 
least change — but you must go back at once/ 

"And of course I was going to stay. Some 
of my minds was perfectly willing not to be at 
the party in any case, and anyhow the rest of 
them wanted to stay with Chris. 

"Insley picked up some little belongings of 
hers, seeming to know them without being told, 
and because the time was so queer, and mebbe 
because death was in the next room, and mebbe 
for another reason or two, I could guess how, 
all the while he was answering her friendly 
questions about the little Cadoza boy — all 
that while the Personal, the Personal^ like a 
living thing, hovered just beyond his words. 
And at last it just naturally came in and pos- 
sessed what he was saying. 

"*I can't thank you enough for coming down 
here,' he says. *It's meant everything to Chris 
— and to me.' 

" She glanced up at him with her pretty near 
boyish frankness, that had in it that night some 
new element of confidence and charm and just 
being dear. 

"* Don't thank me,' she says, *it wa:s mine to 
do, too. And besides, I haven't done anything. 
And I'm running away !' 



272 MOTHERS TO MEN 



CC 



He Icx)ked off up the road towards where, on 
its hill, Proudfit House was a-setting, a-glowing 
in all its windows, a-waiting for her to come, and 
to have her engagement to another man an- 
nounced in it, and then to belong up there for 
ever and ever. He started to say something — 
I donno whether he knew what or whether he 
didn't; but anyhow he changed his mind and 
just opened the door for her, the parlour door 
that I bet was as surprised to be used as if it had 
cackled. 

**The Proudfit motor had stood waiting at 
the gate all this while, and as they got out to 
it, Dr. Heron drove up, and with him was 
Mis' Hubbelthwait come to enquire. So Robin 
waited outside to see what Dr. Heron should 
say when he had seen Chris's father again, 
and I went to the door to speak to Mis' Hubbel- 
thwait. 

"* Liquor's what ails him fast enough,' Mis' 
Hubbelthwait whispers — Mis' Hubbelthwait 
would of whispered in the middle of a forty-acre 
field if somebody had said either birth or death 
to her. * Liquor's what ails him. I know 'em. 
I remember the nice, well-behaved gentheman 
that come to the hotel and only lived one night 
after. "Mr. Elder," I says to him, severe, "you 
needn't to tell me your stomach ain't one livin' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 273 

pickle, for I know it is !'' AnVhe proved it by 
dyin' that very night. If he didn't prove it, 
I don't know what he did prove. "Alcoholism," 
Dr. Heron called it, but I know it wajs liquor 
killed him. No use dressin' up words. An' 
I miss my guess if this here poor soul ain't 
the self-same river to cross.' 

"She would have come in, but there's no call 
for the whole town to nurse a sick-bed, I always 
think — and so she sort of hung around a minute, 
sympathetic and mum, and then slimpsed oiF 
with very little starch to her motions, like when 
you walk for sick folks. I looked out to where 
Robin and Insley was waiting by the big Proud- 
fit planet that was going to take her on an orbit 
of its own; and all of a sudden, with them in 
front of me and with what was behind me, the 
awful good-byness of things sort of shut down 
on me, and I wanted to do something or tell 
somebody something, I didn't know what, 
before it was too late ; and I run right down to 
them two. 

"*0h,' I says, scrabblin' some for my words, 
*I want to tell you something, both of you. If 
it means anything to either of you to know that 
there's a little more to me, for having met both 
of you — then I want you to know it. And it's 
true. You both — oh, I donno,' I says, *what 



274 MOTHERS TO MEN 

it is — but you both kind of act like life was a 
person, and like it wasn't just your dinner to 
be et. . . . And I kind of know the person, 
too. . . • 

" I knew what I meant, but meant things and 
said things don't often match close. .And yet 
I donno but they understood me. Anyway, 
they both took hold of a hand of mine, and said 
some little broke-off thing that I didn't rightly 
get. But I guess that we all knew that we all 
knew. And in a minute I went back in the 
house, feeling like I'd got the best of some time 
when I might of wished, like we all do, that I'd 
let somebody know something while then was 
then. 

"When I got inside the door, I see right off by 
Dr. Heron's face that there' d been some change. 
And sure enough there was. Chris's father had 
opened his eyes and had spoke. And I done 
what I knew Robin would have wanted; I 
wheeled round and went to the door and told 
her so. 

"*He's come to,' I says, *and he's just asked 
for Chris.' 

" Sharp off, Robin turned to say something to 
the man waiting in the automobile. Insley 
tried to stop her, but she put him by. They 
come back into the cottage together, and the 



MOTHERS TO MEN 27S 

Proudfit automobile started steaming back to 
Proudfit House without her, 

"Once again Robin roused Chris, as she had 
roused him on the night when he slept on the 
church porch ; she just slipped her hands round 
his throat and lifted his face, and this time she 
kissed him. 

"*Come with Robin,' she said. 

"Chris opened his eyes and for a minute his 
little senses come struggling through his sleep, 
and then with them come dread. He looked up 
in Robin's face, piteous. 

• "*Did my daddy go out?^ he asks, shrill, 

* like my mama did ? ' 

"*No, no, dear,' Robin said. *He wants you 
to say good-by to him first, you know. Be 
still and brave, for Robin.' 

"There wasn't no way to spare him, because 
the poor little figure on the bed was saying his 
name, restless, to restless movements. I was 
in there by him, fixing him a little something 
to take. 

"* Where's Chris?' the sick man begged. 
*Look on the church steps — ' 

"They took Chris in the room, and Insley 
lifted him up to Robin's knee on the chair beside 
the bed. 

"* Hello — my nice daddy,' Chris says, in 



276 MOTHERS TO MEN 

• 

his little high voice, and smiles adorable. * I — 
I — I was waitin' for you all this while/ 

"His father put out his hand, awful awkward, 
and took the child's arm about the elbow. FU 
never forget the way the man's face looked. It 
didn't looked used, somehow — it looked all 
sort of bare and barren, and like it hadn't been 
occupied. I remember once seeing a brand-new 
house that had burned down before anybody had 
ever lived in it, and some of it stuck up in the 
street, nice new doorSj nice hardwood stairway, 
new brick - chimney, and everything else all 
blackened and spoiled and done for, before ever it 
had been lived in. That was what Chris's father's 
face made me think of. The outline was young, 
and the eyes was young — young and burning — 
but there was the man's face, all spoiled and 
done for, without ever having been used for a 
face at all. 

"* Hello, sonny,' he says, weak. *Got a good 
home 'i ' 

"*He's in a good home, with good people, Mr. 
Bartlett,' Insley told him. 

" * For keeps ? ' Chris's father asks, his eyes 
burning at Insley's over the boy's head. 

"*We shall look after him somehow, among 
us,' Robin says. * Don't worry about him, Mr. 
Bartlett. He's all right.' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 277 

"The father's look turned toward her and it 
sort of lingered there a minute. And then it 
lit up a little — he didn't smile or change ex- 
pression, but his look lit up some. 

"* You're the kind of a one I meant,' he says. 
*I wanted he should have a good home. I — I done 
pretty good for you, didn't I, Chris ?' he says. 

"Chris leaned way over and pulled at his 
sleeve. *You — you — you come in our house, 
too,' he says. 

"*No, sonny, no,' says the man. *I guess 
mebbe I'm — goin' somewheres else. But I 
done well by you, didn't I ? Your ma and I 
always meant you should hev a good home. I'm 
glad — if you've got it. It's nicer than bein' 
with me — ain't it ? Ain't it ?' 

"Chris, on Robin's knee, was leaning forward 
on the bed, his hand patting and pulling at his 
father's hand. 

"*If you was here, then it is,' the child says. 

"At that his father smiled — and that was 
the first real, real look that had come into his 
face. And he looked around slow to the rest 
of us. 

"*I wasn't never the kind to hev a kid,' he 
says. *The drink had me — had me hard. I 
knew I'd got to find somebody to show him — 
about growin' up. I'm glad you're goin' to.' 



arS MOTHERS TO MEN 

**He shut his eyes and Chris threw himself 
forward and patted his face. 

" * Daddy ! ' he cried, ^ I wanted to tell you — I 
had that hot ice-cream an* — an' — an' tea on a 
litty wagon. . . .' 

"Robin drew him back, hushed him, looked 
up questioning to Insley. And while we all 
set there, not knowing whether to leave or to 
stay, the man opened his eyes, wide and dark. 

" ^ I wish't it had been different,' he said. ^Oh 
— God. ... 

** Chris leans right over, eager, towards him. 

"^Didn't he say anything back ?' he says. 

"^I guess so,' the man says, thick. ^I guess 
if you're a good boy, he did.' Then he turned 
his head and looked straight at Robin. ^ Don't 
you forget about his throat, will you ?' he says. 
*It — gets — sore — awful — easy. . . .' 

"He stopped talking, with a funny upsetting 
sound in his voice. It struck me then, like it 
has since, how frightful it was that neither him 
nor Chris thought of kissing each other — like 
neither one had brought the other up to know 
how. And yet Chris kissed all of us when we 
asked him — just like something away back in 
him knew how, without being brought up to 
know. 

He knew how to cry, though, without no 



a 



a 



MOTHERS TO MEN 279 

bringing up, like folks do. As Robin come with 
him out of the room, Chris hid his face in her 
skirts, crying miserable. She set down by the 
window with him in her arms, and Insley went 
and stood side of them, not saying anything. 
I see them so, while Dr. Heron and I was busy 
for a minute in the bedroom. Then we come 
out and shut the door — ain't it strange, how one 
minute it takes so many people around the bed, 
and next minute, there's the one that was the one 
left in there all alone, able to take care of itself. 
Dr. Heron went away, and Robin still set 
there, holding Chris. All of a sudden he put up 
his face. 

"* Robin,' he says, Mid — did my daddy leave 
me a letter ? ' 

" ' A letter ? ' she repeated. 

"^To tell me what to do,' says the child. 
*Like before. On the church steps.' 

"^No — why, no, Chris,' she answers him. 
'He didn't have to do that, you know.' 

"His eyes was holding hers, like he wanted 
so much to understand. 

"'Then how'U I know ?' he asks, simple. 

" It seemed to me it was like a glass, magnify- 
ing living, had suddenly been laid on life. Here 
he was, in the world, with no 'letter' to tell him 
what to do. 



28o MOTHERS TO MEN 

"All she done was just to lay her cheek right 
close to his cheek. 

"^ Robin is going to tell you what to do/ 
she says, ^ till you are big enough to know/ 
, "Insley stood there looking at her, and his 
face was like something had just uncovered it. 
And the minute seemed real and simple and 
almost old — as if it had begun to be long, long 
before. It was kind of as if Robin's will was the 
will of all women, away back for ever and ever 
in time, to pour into the world their power of 
life and of, spirit, through a child. 

"Insley went out in the kitchen to see Mis* 
Cadoza about some arrangements — if * Ar- 
rangements' means funerals, it always seems like 
the word was spelt different and stiffer — and we 
was setting there in that sudden, awful idleness 
that comes on after, when there was the noise of an 
automobile on the Plank Road, and it stopped to 
the cottage and Alex Proudfit come springing 
up to the front door. He pushed it open and 
come in the room, and he seemed to put the 
minute in capitals, with his voice and his looks 
and his clothes. I never see clothes so black 
and so white and so just-so as Alex Proudfit's 
could be, and that night they was more just- 
so than usual. That night, his hands, with their 



MOTHERS TO MEN 281 

thick, strange ring, and his dark, kind of even 
face was like some fancy picture of a knight 
and a lover. But his face never seemed to me to 
be made very much a-purpose and just for him. 
It was rather like a good sample of a good brand, 
and like a good sample of any other good brand 
would have done him just as well. His face 
didn't fit him inevitable, like a cork to a bottle. 
It was laid on more arbitrary, like a window 
on a landscape, and you could have seen the 
landscape through any other window just as 
well, or better. 

"^ Robin !' he said, ^why did you let the car 
come back without you ? We've been frantic 
with anxiety.' 

"She told him in a word or two what had 
happened, and he received it with his impressions 
just about half-and-half: one-half relief that 
the matter was well over and one-half anxiety 
for her to hurry up. Everyone was at the house, 
everyone was wondering. Mrs. Emmons was 
anxious. . . . ^My poor Robin, you've over- 
taxed your strength,' he ends. * You'll look 
worn and not yourself to-night. It's too bad 
of it. Come, for heaven's sake, let's be out of 
this. Come, Calliope. . . .' 

He asked her if she had anything to bring, and 
he gathered up what she told him was hers. I 



282 MOTHERS TO MEN 

got ready, too, so's to go up to Proudfit House to 
put Chris to bed and set by him awhile. And 
just as I was going out to let Insley know we 
was leaving, the door to the other room opened 
and there stood Mis' Cadoza. I see she'd twisted 
her hair over fresh and she'd put on a collar. I 
remember now the way I felt when she spoke. 

" ^ I've got the coffee pot on and some batter 
stirred up,' says she, kind of shame-faced. * I 
thought mebbe some hot pan-cakes and some- 
thin' hot to drink'd go good — with Mr. Insley 
an' all of you.' 

"Alex started to say something — heaven 
knows what — but Robin went right straight up 
to Mis' Cadoza — and afterwards I thought back 
to how Robin didn't make the mistake of being 
too grateful. 

" ^ How I'd like them ! ' she says, matter-of-fact. 
*But I've got a lot of people waiting for me, and 
I oughtn't to keep them. . . . ' 

"Insley spoke up from where he was over on 
the edge of little Eph's bed, and I noticed Mis' 
Cadoza had tried to neaten up the kitchen some, 
and she'd set the table with oil-cloth and some 
clean dishes. 

"*I was afraid you'd all stay,' he says, *and I 
do want all the pan-cakes. Hurry on — you're 
keeping back our supper.' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 283 

" He nodded to Alex, smiled with us, and come 
and saw us out the door. Mis' Cadoza come too, 
and Robin and I shook hands with her for good- 
night. And as Mis' Cadoza stood there in her 
own door, seeing us off, and going to be hostess 
out in her own kitchen, I wondered to myself if it 
was having a collar on, or what it was, that give 
her a kind of pretty near dignity. 

" I got in the front seat of the car. Chris was 
back in the tonneau between Robin and Alex, 
and as we started he tried to tell Alex what had 
happened. 

"^My — my — my daddy ' he says. 

^* * Poor little cuss,' says Alex. ^But how ex- 
tremely well for the child, Robin, that the beggar 
died. Heavens, how I hate your going in these 
ghastly places. My poor Robin, what an expe- 
rience for ^o-nzgA^ .^ For our to-night. . . .' 

"She made a sudden move, abrupt as a bird 
springing free of something that's holding it. 
She spoke low, but I heard every word of it. 

*^^Alex,' she said, ^ we've made a mistake, 
you and I. But it isn't too late to mend it now.' 



XII 

***I HOPE, Calliope/ said Postmaster Silas 
Sykes to me, *that you ain^t in favour of women 
suffrage/ 

"^No, Silas,' says I, 'I ain't/ 

"And I felt all over me a kind of a nice wild 
joy at saying a thing that I knew a male creature 
would approve of. 

"Silas was delivering the groceries himself 
that day, and accepting, of a glass of milk in my 
kitchen doorway. And on my kitchen stoop 
Letty Ames — that had come home in time 
for the Proudfit party — was a-sitting, a-stitch- 
ing away on a violet muslin breakfast-cap. It 
was the next day after the party and my regular 
wash-day and I was glad to be back in my own 
house, washing quiet, with Emerel Daniel to 
help me. 

"*At school,' says Letty, * everybody was for 

it/ 

" * I know it,' says Silas, gloomy. *The schools 

is goin' to the dogs, hot-foot. Women suffrage, 

tinkerin' pupils' teeth, cremation — I don't know 

384 



1 



MOTHERS TO MEN 285 

what-all their holdin' out for. In my day they 
stuck to 'rithmetic and toed the crack/ 

" ^That isn't up to date, Mr. Sykes/ says Letty, 
to get Silas riled. 

" It done it. He waved his left arm, angular. 

"^Bein' up to date is bein' up to the devil,' 
he begun, raspish, when I cut in, hasty and peace- 
ful. 

"^By the way, Silas,' I says, * speaking of 
dates, it ain't more'n a year past the time you 
aldermen was going to clear out Black Hollow, is 
it ? Ain't you going to get it done this spring ?' 

"^Oh, dum it, no,' Silas says. ^They're all 
after us now to get to pavin' that new street.' 

"^That street off there in the marsh. I know 
they are,' I says innocent. ^ Your cousin's makin' 
the blocks, ain't he, Silas ?' 

"Just then, in from the shed where she was 
doing my washing come Emerel Daniel — a 
poor little thing that looked like nothing but 
breath with the skin drawn over it — and she 
was crying. 

"^Oh, Miss Marsh,' she says, *I guess you'll 
have to leave me go home. I left little Otie 
so sick — I hadn't ought to of left him — only 
I did want the fifty cents. . . .' 

"^Otie !' I says. *I thought Otie was getting 
better. ' 



286 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"*rve kept sayin' so because I was ashamed 
to let folks know/ Emerel says, *an' me leavin' 
him to work. But I had to have the money — ^ 

"*Land,' I says, *of course you did. Go on 
home. Silas'U take you in the delivery wagon, 
won't you, Silas ? You're going right that way, 
ain't you ?' 

"*I wasn't,' says Silas, *but I can go round 
that way to oblige.' That's just exactly how 
Silas is. 

"^Emerel,' I says, *when you go by the 
Hollow, you tell Silas what you was tellin' 
me — about the smells from there into your 
house. Silas,' I says, Hhat hole could be filled 
up with sand-bar sand dirt cheap, now while 
the river's low, and you know it.' 

"^ Woman — ' Silas begins excitable. 

"^Of course you can't,' I saved him the 
trouble, ^not while the council is running pave- 
ment halfway acrost the swamp to graft off'n the 
Wooden Block folks. That's all, Silas. I know 
you, head and heart,' I says, some direct. 

"*You don't understand city dealin's no 
more'n — Who-a !' Silas yells, pretending 
his delivery horse needed him, and lit down the 
walk, Emerel following. Silas reminds me of 
the place in the atmosphere where a citizen 
ought to be, and ain't. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 287 

"Emerel had left the clothes m the bluing 
water, so I stood and talked with Letty a minute, 
stitching away on her muslin breakfast-cap. 

"*rd be fbr women voting just because Silas 
isn't,' she says, feminine. 

"*In them words,' says I to her, *is some of 
why women shouldn't do it. The most of 'em 
reason,' I says, ^like rabbits !' 

** Letty sort of straightened up and looked 
at me, gentle. She just graduated from the 
Indian Mound School and, in spite of yourself, 
you notice what she says. * You're mistaken. 
Miss Marsh,' says she, *I believe in women vot- 
ing because we're folks and mothers, and we 
can't bring up our children with men taking 
things away from 'em that we know they'd 
ought to have. I want to bring up my childreh 
by my votes as well as by my prayers,' says she. 

^^^Your children !' says I. 

" I donno if you've ever noticed that look come 
in a girl's face when she speaks of her children 
that are going to be sometime ? Up to that 
minute I'd 'a' thought Letty's words was brazen. 
But when I see how she looked when she said 
it, I sort of turned my eyes away, kind of half 
reverent. We didn't speak so when I was a girl. 
The most we ever heard mentioned like that was 
when our mothers showed us our first baby dress 



288 MOTHERS TO MEN 

and told us that was for our baby — and then 
we always looked away, squeamish. 

"^That's kind of nice/ I says, slow, *your 
owning up, out loud that way, that maybe you 
might possibly have — have one, sometime.' 

"^My mother has talked to me about it since I 
began to know — everything,' Letty said. 

"That struck awful near home. 

"^I always wisht,' I says, *rd talked with 
my mother — like that. J always wisht I'd 
had her tell me about the night I was born. 
I think everybody ought to know about that. 
But I remember when she begun to speak about 
it, I always kind of shied off. I should think 
it would of hurt her. But then,' I says, *I 
never had any of my own. So it don't matter.' 

"^Oh, yes, you have. Miss Marsh,' says Letty. 

" I looked at her, blank. 

"^ Every child that's born belongs to you,' 
says Letty to me, solemn. 

"^Go on,' says I, to draw her out. *I 
wouldn't own most of the little jackanapesses.' 

"^But you do J says Letty, 'and so do I ! So 
does every woman, mother or not.' 

" She set the little violet muslin cap on her head 
to try it, and swept up and made me a little 
bow. Pretty as a picture she looked, and ready 
for loving. .... I always wonder if things 



MOTHERS TO MEN 289 

ain't sometimes arranged to happen in patterns, 
same as crystals. For why else should it be that 
at that instant minute young Elbert Sykes, 
Silas's son, that was home for the party and a 
little longer, come up to my door with a note from 
his mother — and see Letty in the violet cap, bow- 
ing like a rose ? 

"While they was a-talking easy, like young 
folks knows how to do nowdays, I read the 
note ; and it was about what had started Silas 
to talking suffrage. Mis' Sykes had opened 
her house to a suffrage meeting that evening, 
and Mis' Martin Lacy from the City was a-going 
to talk, and would I go over ? 

"'Land, yes,' I says to Elbert. *Tell her I'll 
come, just for something to do. I wonder if I 
can bring Letty, too ? ' 

"^Mother'd be proud, I know,' says Elbert, 
looking at her like words, and them words a-prais- 
ing. They had used to play together when 
they was little, but school had come in and kind 
of made them over. 

^^^Soj^ says he to Letty, bantering, 'you're in 
favour of women voting, are you ?' 

"She broke off her thread and looked up at 
him. 

"'Of course I am,' she says, giving a cunning 
little kitten nod that run all down her shoulders. 



290 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"*So you think,' says Elbert, 'that you're just 
as strong as I am — to carry things along ? 
Mind you, I don't say as clever. You're easily 
that. But put it at just strong.^ 

" She done the little nod again, nicer than the 
first time. 

"'You talk like folks voted with their mus- 
cles,' says she. 'Well, I guess some men do, 
judging by the results.' 

"He laughed, but he went on. 

"'And you think,' he says, 'that you would be 
just as wonderful in public life as you would be 
in your home — your very own home?' 

"Letty put the last stitch in her muslin cap 
and she set it on her head — all cloudy and rose- 
budded, and land, land, she was lovely when 
she looked up. 

"'Surely,' she says from under the ruffle, 
with a little one-cornered smile. 

"He laughed right into her eyes. 'I don't 
believe you think so,' he says, triumphant. 
And all of a sudden there come a-sticking up 
its head in his face the regular man look — I 
can't rightly name it, but every woman in the 
world knows it when she sees it — a kind of an 
Pm the one of us two but don^t lefs stop pretend'" 
ing ifs you look. 

^'When she see it, what do you suppose Letty 



MOTHERS TO MEN 291 

done ? First she looked down. Then she 
blushed. Then she shrugged up one shoulder 
and laughed, sort of little and low and soft. 
And she kept still. She was about as much like 
the dignified woman that had just been talking 
to me about women's duty as a bow of blue 
ribbon is like my work apron. And as plain 
as the blue on the sky, I see that she liked the 
minute when she let Elbert beat her — liked it, 
with a sort of a glow and a quiver. 

"He laughed again, and, ^You stay just the 
the way you are,' he says, and he contrived 
to make them common words sort of flow all over 
her like petting. 

"That evening, when we marched into the 
Sykes's house to the meeting, he spoke to her 
like that again. The men was invited to the 
meeting, too, but Mis' Sykes let it be known 
that they needn't to come till the coffee and 
sandwiches, thus escaping the speech. Mis' 
Sykes ain't in favour of suffrage, but she does love 
a new thing in town, and Mis' Martin Lacy 
was so well dressed and so soft-spoken that 
Mis' Sykes would of left her preach foot-binding 
in her parlour if she'd wanted to. Mis' Sykes 
is like that. Letty was about the youngest 
there, and she was about the prettiest I 'most 
ever saw; and when he'd got them all seated, 



292 MOTHERS TO MEN 

young Elbert Sykes, that was the only man there, 
just naturally gravitated over and set down^ 
by her, like the Lord meant. I love to see 
them little things happen, and I never smile 
at them, same as some. Because it's like I got 
a peek in behind the curtain and see the eternal 
purpose working away, quiet and still. 

"Well, Mis' Lacy, she talked, and she put 
things real sane and plain, barring I didn't believe 
any of what she said. And pretty soon I 
stopped trying to listen and I begun thinking 
about Emerel Daniel. I'd been down to see 
her just before supper, and I hadn't had 
her out of my head much of the time since. 
Emerel 's cottage wasn't half a block from 
Black Hollow, the great low place beyond the 
river road that the town used as a dump. It 
was full of things without names, and take it on a 
day with the wind just right, Emerel had to keep 
her window shut on that side of her house. 
Water was standing in the hollow all the whole 
time. Flies and mosquitoes come from it by 
the flock and the herd. And when I'd held my 
nose and scud past it that afternoon to get to 
Emerel's, I'd almost run into Dr. Heron, just 
coming out from seeing Otie, and I burst right 
out with my thoughts all over him, and asked 
him if Black Hollow wasn't what was the matter 



MOTHERS TO MEN 293 

with Otie and if it wasn't all that was the matter 
with him. 

"* Unquestionably/ says Dr, Heron. *I told 
Mrs. Daniel six months ago that she must move.' 

"^Well,' says I, ^not having any of her other 
country homes open this year, Emerel had to 
stay where she was. And Otie with her. But 
what did you say to the council about filling 
in the hole ? ' 

"*The council/ says Dr. Heron, Ms paving 
the county swamp. There's a good crop of 
wooden blocks this year.' 

"^True enough,' says I, grim, *and Otie is 
a-paying for it.' 

"That was exactly how the matter stood. 
And all the while Mis' Lacy was a-talking her 
women suffrage, I set there grieving for Emerel, 
and wondering how it was that Silas Sykes and 
Timothy Toplady and Jimmy Sturgis and even 
Eppleby Holcomb, that belonged to the common 
council, could set by and see Otie die, and more 
or less of the rest of us in the same kind of danger. 

"Next I knew, Mis' Lacy, that was all silky 
movements and a sweet voice, had got through 
her own talk and was asking us ladies to ex- 
press ourselves. Everybody felt kind of deli- 
cate at first, and then Libby Liberty starts up 
and spoke her mind : — 



294 MOTHERS TO MEN 

"*/ believe all you've been a-saying/ she 
says, * and I hev for twenty years. I never kill 
a hen without I realize how good the women can 
do a human being's work if they're put to it.' 

"*I always think of that, too,' says Mis' 
Hubbelthwait, quick, ^ about the hotel. . . .' 
She kind of stopped, but we all knew what she 
meant. Threat is seldom if ever sober, espe- 
cially on election day ; but he votes, and she 
only runs the hotel and keeps them both out of 
the poorhouse. 

"*Well, look at me,' says Abagail Arnold, 
Moin' work to oven and to counter, an' can't 
get my nose near nothin' public but my taxes.' 

^**0f course,' says Mis' Uppers, rocking, *I've 
almost been the mayor of Friendship Village, 
bein' his wife, so. An' I must say he never done 
a thing I didn't think I could do. Or less it was 
the junketin' trips. I'd 'a' been down with one 
o' my sick headaches on every one o' them.' 

^*'Men knoiv more,' admitted Mis' Fire Chief 
Merriman, *but I donno as they can do any 
more than us. When the Fire Chief was alive 
an' holdin' office an' entertaining politicians, I 
use' often to think o' that, when I had their hot 
dinner to get.' 

"^I s'pose men do know more than we do,' 
says Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, re- 



MOTHERS TO MEN ^95 

flective. *I know Eppleby is lightnin' at figures, 
an' he can tell about time-tables, an' he sees 
sense to fine print parts o' the newspapers that 
looks like so many doctors' prescriptions to me. 
An' yet honestly, when it comes to some ques- 
tions of sense, I've known Eppleby not to have 
any.' 

"^ Jimmy, either,' says Mis' Sturgis, confi- 
dential. *I donno. I've thought about that a 
good deal. It seems as if, if we got the chance, 
us women might not vote brilliant at first, but 
we would vote with our sense. The sense that 
can pick out a pattern and split a receipt, an' 
dress the children out o' the house money. I bet 
there's a lot o' that kind o' sense among women 
that don't get used up, by a long shot.' 

"Mis' Timothy Toplady drew her shawl up 
her back, like she does, 

"^Well-a,' she says, ^Timothy's an awful good 
husband, but when I see some of the things he 
buys for the house, an' the way he gets took in 
on real estate, I often wonder if he's such a good 
citizen as he lets on.' 

"I kep' a-wondering why Letty didn't say 
something, and by and by I nudged her. 
*Go on, speak up,' I intimated.. 
And, same time, I heard Elbert Sykes, on 
the other side, say something to her, low. *I 






296 MOTHERS TO MEN 

could tell them/ he says to her, 'that to look 
like you do is better than being elected ! ' 

"And Letty — what do you s'spose ? — she 
just glanced up at him, and made a little kind of 
a commenting wrinkle with her nose, and looked 
down and kept her silence. Just like he'd set 
there with a little fine chain to her wrist. 

"We talked some more and asked some 
questions and heard Mis' Lacy read some, and 
then it was time for the men. They come in 
together — six or eight of them, and most of 
them, as it happened, members of the common 
council. And when Mis' Sykes had set them 
down on the edge of the room, and before any- 
body had thought of any remark to pass, Mis' 
Lacy she spoke up and ask' the men to join in 
the discussion, and called on Mis' Sykes, that 
hadn't said nothing yet, to start the ball a-roU- 
ing. 

'''Well,' says Mis' Sykes, with her little 
society pucker, *I must' say the home and bring- 
up my children seems far, far more womanly to 
me than the tobacco smoke and whiskey of public 
life.' 

" She glanced over to the men, kind of with a 
way of arching her neck and they all gave her a 
sort of a little ripple, approving. And with this 
Mis' Toplady kind of tossed her head up. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 297 

"*0h, well, I don't want the responsibility/ 
she says. 'Land, if I was a votin' woman, I 
should feel as if Fd got bread in the pan and 
cake in the oven and clothes in the bluin' water 
all the whole time/ 

"'He, he, he !' says Timothy, her lawful lord. 
And Silas and Jimmy Sturgis and the rest joined 
in, tuneful. 

"Then Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame-Bliss, 
she vied in, and done a small, careless laugh. 

"'Oh, well, me, too,' she says, 'I declare, as I 
get older an' wake up some mornin's I feel like 
life was one big breakfast to get an' me the hired 
girl. If I had to vote besides, I donno what I 
would do.' 

"'An',' says Mis' Hubbelthwait, 'I always 
feel as if a politician was a disgrace to be, same 
as an actor, unless you got to be a big one. An' 
can us women ever be big ones even if we want ? 
Which I'm sure I don't want,' she says, sidling a 
look towards the men's row. 

"'Oh, not only that,' says Abagail Arnold, 
' but you'd feel so kind of sheepish votin' for the 
President, away off there in Washington. I 
always feel terrible sheepish even prayin' for him, 
let alone votin' — an' like it couldnH make no 
real difference.' 

"'Oh, an' ladies!^ says Mis' Mayor Uppers, 



298 MOTHERS TO MEN 

^ really it's bad enough to have been the wife of 
a mayor. If I had to vote an' was in danger 
of coming down with a nomination for some- 
thin' myself, I couldn't get to sleep nights/ 

"* Mercy,' said Mis' Fire Chief Merriman, 
*a mayor is nothin' but a baby in public life 
compared to a fire chief. A mayor gets his 
night's rest. Could a woman ever chase to fires 
at three o'clock in the mornin' ? An' if she 
votes, what's to prevent her bein' elected to 
some such job by main strength ? ' 

"*0r like enough get put on a jury settin' on 
a murderer, an' hev to look at dug-up bones an* 
orgins,' says Mis' Sturgis — her that's an in- 
valid and gloomy by complexion. 

"And one and all, as they spoke, they looked 
sidewise to the men for their approval. And 
they got it. 

"'That's the ticket !' says Timothy Toplady, 
slapping his knee. * I tell you, gentlemen, we've 
got a nice set of women folks here in this town. 
They don't prostitute their brains to no fool 
notions.' 

"There was a little hush, owing to that word 
that Timothy had used kind of uncalled for, and 
then a little quick buzz of talk to try to cover it. 
And in the buzz I heard Elbert saying to Letty : 

***You know you think of yourself in a home 



MOTHERS TO MEN 299 

afterward — and not around at polls and things, 
Letty/ 

" * You don't have to board at the polls because 
you vote there, you know,' Letty said ; but she 
says it with a way, with a way. She said it like 
a pretty woman talking to a man that's looking in 
her eyes and thinking how pretty she is, and she 
knows he's thinking so. And you can't never 
get much real arguing done that way. 

"It always kind of scares me to see myself 
showed up — and now it was like I had ripped 
a veil off the whole sex, and off me, too. I see 
us face to face. Why was it that before them 
men had come in, the women had all talked kind 
of doubtful and suffrage-leaning, and then had 
veered like the wind the minute the men had 
come on the scene ? Mis' Toplady had defied 
Timothy time after time, both public and pri- 
vate; Mis' Hubbelthwait bosses her husband 
not only drunk but sober ; Mis' Sturgis don't do 
a thing Jimmy wants without she happens to 
want it too — and so on. Yet at the mention 
of this one thing, these women that had been 
talking intelligent and wondering open-minded 
had all stopped being the way they was and had 
begun to say things sole to please the men. Even 
Libby Liberty had kept still — her that has a 
regular tongue in her head. And Letty, that 



300 MOTHERS TO MEN 

believed in it all, and had talked to me so 
womanly that morning, she was listening and 
blushing for Elbert and holding her peace. And 
then I remembered, like a piece of guilt, sensing 
that nice, wild feeling I myself had felt that 
morning a-denying woman suffrage in the pres- 
ence of Postmaster Silas Sykes, What in crea- 
tion ailed us all ? 

^'What in creation. • . . Them words sort 
of steadied me. It looked to me like it was 
creation itself that ailed us yet. Creation is a 
thing that it takes most folks a good while to 
recover from. . . . 

". • , Irememberedseeing Silas's delivery boy 
go whistling along the street one night, and pass 
a cat. The cat wasn't doing nothing active. It 
was merely idle. But the boy brought up a big 
shingle he was carrying and swished it through 
the air and says *Z-t-t-t-t,' to the cat's heels, to 
see the cat take to them — which it done — like 
the cat immemorial has done for immemorial 
boys, delivery and other. And once, at dusk, a 
big, strange man with a gun on his shoulder 
passed me on Daphne Street, and when he done 
so, he says to me *Z-t-t-t,' under his breath, 
just like the boy to the cat, and just like the un- 
tamed man immemorial has said when he got 
the chance. It seemed to me like men was 



1 



MOTHERS TO MEN 301 

created with, so to say, a shingle and a 
gun, for the hunting, and just as there is 
joy in their hunting, so there is a palpitatin' 
delight in being hunted and flattered by being 
caught and bound, hand and foot and mind. 

"'We like it — why, I tell you, we like it,' I 
says to myself, 'and us here in Mis' Sykes's 
parlour are burning with the old original, left- 
over fire, breathed at creation into women's 
breasts !' 

"And it seemed like I kind of touched hands 
with all the women that used to be. And I 
looked over to that row of grinning, tired men, 
not so very much dressed up, and I thought : — 

" ' Why, you're the men of this world and we're 
the women, and there ain't no more thrilling 
fact in this universe. And why don't we all rec- 
o'nize it and shut up ?' 

"That was what I was thinking over in my 
mind while Mis' Martin Lacy said good night 
to us and rushed off to catch her train for the 
City, hoping she had made us see some light. 
That was what I was still going over when Mis' 
Sykes called me to help with the refreshments. 
And then, just as I started out to the kitchen, 
the outside door that was part open was pushed 
in and somebody come in the room. It was 
Emerel Daniel, in calico and no hat. And as 



302 MOTHERS TO MEN 

soon as we see her face, everybody stopped 
talking and stared. She was white as the table- 
cloth and shaking. 

"*0h, ladies/ she says, ^ won't one of you 
come down to the house ? Otie's worse — I 
donno what it is. I donno what to do to take 
care of him.' 

"She broke down, poor, nervous little thing, 
and sort of swallowed her whole throat. And 
Mis' Toplady and we all rushed right over to 
her. 

" ' Why, Emerel,' Mis' Toplady says, ' I thought 
Otie was getting ever so much better. Is it the 
the real typhoid, do you s'pose ? ' she ask' her. 

" Emerel looked over to me. ^ Isn't it ? ' she 
says. And then I spoke right up with all there 
is to me. 

"*Yes, sir,' I says, Mt is the real typhoid. 
And if you want to know what's giving it to 
him, ladies and gentlemen, ask the common 
council that's setting over there by the wall. 
Dr. Heron says that Black Hollow, that's a 
sink for the whole town, give it to him, and that 
nothing else did — piled full of diseases right in 
back of Emerel's house. And if you want to 
know who's responsible for his dying if he dies,' 
I says right out, Mook over in the same direc- 
tion to the men that wouldn't vote to fill in the 



r 



MOTHERS TO MEN 303 

Black Hollow with sand because they needed the 
money so bad for paving up half the county 
swamp/ 

*^It was most as still in the room as when 
Timothy had said * prostitute.' All but me. I 
went right on — nothing could of kept me still 
then. ' 

"*Us ladies,' I says, ^has tried for two years 
to get the Council to fill in that hole. We've said 
and said what would happen to some of us, what 
with our pumps so near the place, and what with 
flies from it visiting our dinner-table dishes, 
sociable and continual. What did you say to 
us ? You said women hadn't no idee of town 
finances. Mebbe we ain't — mebbe we ain't. 
But we have got some idea of town humanity, 
if I do say it, that share in it. And this poor 
little boy has gone to work and proved it.' 

"With that, Emerel, who had been holding 
in — her that's afraid even to ask for starch if 
you forget to give it to her — she broke right 
down and leaned her head on her arm on the 
clock shelf: — 

"^Oh,' she says, *all the years I been giving 
him his victuals and his bath and sewing his 
clothes up, I never meant it to come to this — 
for no reason. If Otie dies, I guess he needn't 
of — that's the worst. He needn't of.' 



304 MOTEIERS TO MEN 

"Mis' Toplady put her arm right around 
Emerel and kind of poored her shoulder in that 
big, mother way she's got — and it was her that 
went with her, like it's always Mis' Toplady 
that does everything. And us ladies turned 
around and all begun to talk at once. 

"* Let's plan out right here about taking 
things in to Emerel,' says Mis' Holcomb-that- 
was-Mame-Bliss. * I've got some fresh bread out 
of the oven. I'll carry her a couple of loaves, 
and another couple next baking or two.' 

"*I'll take h6r in a hen,' says Libby Liberty, 
* so be she'll kill it herself.' 

"Somebody else said a ham, and somebody 
some butter, and Libby threw in some fresh eggs, 
if she got any. Mis' Hubbelthwait didn't have 
much to do with, but she said she would take 
turns setting up with Otie. Mis' Sykes give a 
quarter — she don't like to bake for folks, but 
she's real generous with money. And Silas 
pipes in: — 

"* Emerel can have credit to the store till Otie 
begins to get better,' he said. * I ain't been lettin' 
her have it. She's looked so peaked I been afraid 
she wan't a-goin' to be able to work, an' I didn't 
want she should be all stacked up with debts.' 

"But me, I set there a-thinking. And all of 
a sudden I says out what I thought : * Ladies,' I 



X 



* 

L 






MOTHERS TO MEN 305 

says, * and all of you : What to Emerel is hens 
and hams and credit ? They ain't,' I says, 
* nothing but patches and poultices on what's the 
trouble up to her house.' 

"Eppleby Holcomb, that hadn't been saying 
much, spoke up : — 

" * I know,' he says, * I know. You mean what 
good do they da to the boy.' 

" * I mean just that,' I says. * What good is all 
that to Otie that's lying over by Black Hollow ? 
And how does it keep the rest of the town safe ? ' 

"*Well,' says Silas, eager, * let's us get out the 
zinc wagon you ladies bought, and let's us go 
to collectin' the garbage again so that won't all 
be dumped in Black Hollow. And leave the 
ladies keep on payin' for it. It's real ladies' 
work, I think, bein' as it's no more'n a general 
scrapin' up of ladies' kitchens.' 

"Then Letty Ames, that hadn't been saying 
anything, spoke up, to nobody in particular : — 

"*Otie's a dear little soul,' she said, *a dear 
little soul ! ' 

"'Ain't he?' says Mame Holcomb. *Ep- 
pleby 'most always has a nut or somethin' in 
his pocket to give him as he goes by. He takes it 
like a little squirrel an' like a little gentleman.' 

"'He's awful nice when he comes in the shop,' 
said Abagail. * He looks at the penny-apiece kind 



3o6 MOTHERS TO MEN 

and then buys the two-for-a-cent, so's to give 
his mother one.' 

"*He knows how to behave in a store/ Silas 
admitted. *I 'most always give him a coffee- 
berry, just to see him thank me.* 

"*He come into the hotel one day/ says Mis' 
Hubbelthwait, *an' stood by me when I was 
bakin'. I give him a little wad of dough to roll.' 

"*I let him drive the 'bus one day, settin' on 
my knee,' says Jimmy Sturgis. *He was a nice, 
careful, complete little cuss.' 

"Eppleby Hoi comb nodded with his eyes shut. 

"*We don't like folks to swing on our front 
gate,' he says. *He done it, but he marched 
right in and told us he'd done it. I give him 
a doughnut — an' he's kep' right on swingin' 
an' ownin' up an' eatin' doughnuts.' 

"^Even when he chased my chickens,' says 
Libby Liberty, ' he chased 'em like a little gentle- 
man — towards the coop an' not down the road. 
I always noticed that about him.' 

"^Yes,' says Letty, again, ^he's a dear little 
soul. fFhat makes us let him die?^ 

"She said it so calm that it caught even my 
breath — and my breath, in these things, ain't 
easy caught. But I got it right back again, and 
I says : — 

"*Ye8, sir. He was on the way to being 



MOTHERS TO MEN 307 

somebody that Friendship Village could have had 
for the right kind of an inmate. And now he'll 
be nothing but a grave, that's no good to any- 
body.: And Sodality/ I couldn't help adding, 
* will likely pitch right in and take care of his 
grave, tasteful.* 

"And when I said that, it come over me how 
Emerel had dressed him and bathed him and 
made his clothes, and done washings, tireless, to 
get the fifty cents — besides bringing him into 
the world, tedious. And now it was all going 
for nothing, all for nothing — when we could 
of helped it. And I plumped out with what I'd 
said that morning to Silas : — 

"'Why don't you fill up Black Hollow with 
sand-bar sand out of the river, now it's so low ^ 
Then, even if it's too late for Otie, mebbe we 
can keep ourselves from murderin' anybody else,' 

"Them half a dozen men of the common 
council set still a minute, looking down at Mis' 
Sykes's parlour ingrain. And I looked over at 
them, and my heart come up in my throat and 
both of them ached like the toothache. Be- 
cause all of a sudden it seemed to me it wasn't 
just Timothy and Eppleby and Silas and some 
more of the council setting there by the wall — 
but it was like, in them few men, tired and not 
so very well dressed, was setting the lawmakers 



3o8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

of the whole world ; and there in front of them, 
wasn't only Mis' Holcomb and Libby and Letty 
and me, but Emerel Daniel, too, and all the 
women there is — saying to them : * My land, 
we've dressed 'em an' bathed 'em an' sewed for 
'em an' brought 'em into the world, tedious. Let 
'em live — fix things so's they can live an' so's 
it needn't all go for nothin'.' And I sort of bub- 
bled up and spilled over, as if everything we was 
all of us jor had come up in my throat. 

"*0h, folks,' I says, *just look what us in this 
room could have done for Otie — so be we'd be- 
gun in time.' 

"Right like a dash of cold water into my 
face. Mis' Sykes spoke up, cold as some kind of 
death : — 

" * Well, ladies,' she says, * I guess we've got our 
eyes open now. / say that's what we'd ought 
to hev been doin' instead o' talkin' women 
votin', ' she says, triumphant. 

"Then somebody spoke again, in a soft, new, 
not-used-to-it little voice, and in her chair over 
beside Elbert, Letty Ames leaned forward, and 
her eyes was like the sunny places in water. 

"* Don't you see,' she says, Mon't you see, Mis' 
Sykes, that's what Mis' Lacy meant ? ' 

"*How so?' says Mis' Sykes, short. 

"I'll never forget how sweet and shy and un- 



MOTHERS TO MEN 309 

expected and young Letty looked, but she an- 
swered, as brave as brave : — 

"^Otie Daniel is sick,' she said, *and all us 
women can do is to carry him broth and bread 
and nurse him. It's only the men that can bring 
about the things to make him well. And they 
haven't done it. It's been the women who have 
been urging it — and not getting it done. 
Wasn't it our work to do, too ? ' 

" I see Elbert looking at her — like he just 
couldn't bear to have her speak so, like some 
men can't. And I guess he spoke out in answer 
before he meant to : — 

"*But let them do it womanly, Letty,' he said, 
*like your mother did and my mother did.' 

"Letty turned and looked Elbert Sykes 
straight ii> the face : — 

^^' Womanly!^ she says. *What is there 
womanly about my bathing and feeding a child 
inside four clean walls, if dirt and bad food and 
neglect are outside for him ? Will you tell me 
if there is anything more, womanly than my 
right to help make the world as decent for my 
children as I would make my own home ? ' 

"I looked at Letty, and looked; and I see 
with a thrill I can't tell you about how Letty 
seemed. For she seemed the way she had that 
morning on my kitchen stoop, when she spoke 



310 MOTHERS TO MEN 

of her children and when I felt like I'd ought to 
turn away — the way Pd used to when my mother 
showed me my baby dress and told me who it 
would be for. Only now — only now, somehow, 
I didn't want to turn away. Somehow I wanted 
to keep right on looking at Letty, like Elbert was 
looking. And I see what he see. How Letty 
was what she'd said that morning that she was — 
and that I was — and that we all was : A mother, 
then and there, whether she ever had any children 
or not. And she was next door to owning up to 
it right there before them all and before Elbert. 
We didn't speak so when I was a girl. We didn't 
own up, out loud, that we ever thought anything 
about what we was for. ^ But now, when I heard 
Letty do it. . . . 

"... Now, when I heard Letty do it, all to 
once, I looked into a window of the world. And 
instead of touching hands like I had with the 
women that use' to be, I looked off and off down 
all the time there's going to be, and for a minute 
I touched, tip-fingers, the hands of the other 
women that's coming towards me ; and out of 
places inside of me that I didn't know before had 
eyes, I see them, mothers to the whole world, 
inside their four walls and out. And they wasn't 
coming with poultices and bread and broth in 
their hands, to patch up what had been left 



MOTHERS TO MEN 311 

undone ; nor with the keys to schoolhouses that 
they'd got open by scheming; nor with news- 
papers full of health that they'd had to run down 
back alleys to sell; nor national holidays that 
they'd got a-hold of through sheer accident; 
nor yet with nice new headstones for cemetery 
improvements on the dead and gone — no, sir, 
their hands wasn't occupied with any of these 
ways of serving that they'd schemed for and 
stole. But their hands — was in men's hands, 
closer and nearer than they'd ever been be- 
fore. And their eyes was lit up with a look 
that was a new look, and that give new life to 
the old original left-over blaze. And I looked 
across to that row of tired men, not so very 
much dressed up, and I thought: — 

"^You're the men of this world and we're the 
women. And there ain't no more thrilling fact 
in this universe, save one, save one: And that's 
that we're all human beings. That your job 
and ours is to make the world ready for the folks 
that are to come, and to make the folks that 
come fit to live in that new world. And yet over 
there by Black Hollow one of our children is 
dying from something that was your job and 
ours to do, and we didn't take hold of hands 
and do it ! ' 

"'Oh, Letty!' I says out. 'And Silas and 



312 MOTHERS TO MEN 

all of you ! Let's pretend, just for a minute, 
that we was all citizens and equal. And let's 
figure out things for Otie, just like we had the 
right!' 

"I'd asked Letty to spend the night with me, 
and Elbert walked home with us. And just as 
we got there, he says to her again : — 

"*0h, Letty — you ain't strong enough to 
help carry things along ! ' 

"* You've got more strength,' she says to him, 
*and more brains. But it isn't so much the 
strength or the brains in women that is going to 
help when the time comes. It's the — mother 
in them.' 

And I says to myself : — 
*And it's the — human beingness of them.' 
But Letty didn't know that yet. 

Elbert answered, after a minute : — 
^You may be right and you may be wrong, 
but, Letty, Letty, what a woman you are ! ' 

"And at that Letty looked up at him, just as 
she had looked at him that morning — just for a 
minute, and then she dipped down the brim 
of her big hat. I donno what she answered 
him. I didn't care. I didn't care. For what 
I see was the old wild joy of a woman in being 
glorified by a male creature. And I knew then. 









1 



MOTHERS TO MEN 313 

and I know now, that that won't never die, 
no matter what. 

"Elbert put out his hand. 

*Good night, Letty,' he said. 

She gave him hers, and he closed over it light 
with his other hand. 

* May I see you to-morrow ? ' he asked her. 

*0h, I don't know,' said Letty. 'Come and 
see if V\l see you — will you ? ' 

He laughed a little, looking in her eyes. 

'At about eight,' he promised. 'Good 
night. . . .' 

"I got the key out from under the mat to a 
tune inside me. Because I'd heard, and I 
knew that Letty had heard, that tone in 
Elbert's voice that is the human tone — I can't 
rightly name it, but every woman in the world 
knows it when she hears it — a tone that says : 
// / have my way^ you and I are going to live out 
our lives together. 

*"And I knew then, and I know now, that 
that tone won't ever die, either. And some day, 
away off in a new world right here on this earth, 
I believe there's going to be a wilder joy in being 
men and women than all the men and women 
up to now have ever lived or dared or dreamed. 






€6 






XIII 

"*Miss Marsh/ says Christopher. 

"Mis' Emmons's living-room was like a cup 
of something cool, and I set there in the after- 
supper light having such a nice rested time drink- 
ing it in that at first I didn't hear him. 

"*Miss Marsh,' he says again, and pulled at 
my dress. I put out my hand to him and he 
took it. Sometimes I donno but hands are a 
race of beings by themselves that talk and answer 
and do all the work and act like slaves and yet 
really rule the world. 

"^Is it me telling my feet where to go or do 
they tell me where I go ? ' asked Christopher. 

"^You can have it either way you want,' I 
told him. *Some does one way and some does 
the other. Which way do you like ? ' 

"He thought for a minute, twisting on one 
foot with the other up in his hand. 

"^I'd like 'em to know how without our sayin* 
so,' he announces finally. 

"'Well,' I says, 'I left out that way. That's 
really the best way of all.' 

"He looked at me eager. 

314 



MOTHERS TO MEN 315 



"*Is it a game ?' he says. 
"'Yes/ I told him. 



"* What's its name ?' he ask' me. 

"'Game of Life,' I told him again. 

"He thought about it, still twisting. Then 
he done one of his littlest laughs, with his head 
turned away. 

"'My feet heard you,' he says. 'Now they 
know how to play.' 

'"I hope so, Christopher,' says I, and kissed 
him on the back of his neck. That made him 
mad, like it usually done. 

"'My neck is my neck,' says he, 'and it's shut 
in my collar. It ain't home to-day.' 

" ' Is your mouth home ? ' I ask' him. 

"And it was. 

"I could of set there talking with him all even- 
ing, but not on the night of Sodality's Annual. 
I'd stopped by for Mis' Emmons. She was 
getting ready, and while I waited I could hear 
folks passing on their way to the schoolhouse 
where the meeting was. For the town was all 
het up about what the meeting was going to do. 

" I'd seen half-dozen or so of us that afternoon 
when we was putting plants on the hall platform, 
and we'd all spoke our minds. 

"'I'm gaspin',' observed Mis' Sturgis, 'to 
take a straw vote of us on this amendin' busi- 



3i6 MOTHERS TO MEN 

ness. Near as I can make out, it's going 
through/ 

"*Near as I can make out/ says Mame Hol- 
comb, * a good deal more than amending is going 
on here to-night. It looks to me as if Sodality 
was just going to get into its own Cemetery and 
be forgot, and as if something else was coming 
to meet us — something big ! ' 

"Mis' Toplady spoke up, comfortable, down 
on her knees putting green paper on the pots. 

"*Well, my land ! ' she says, * Fve noticed two- 
three things in my lifetime. And one is, that 
do what whoever will, things do change. And 
so whenever a new change pops up, I always 
think: "Oh, I guess you're comin' along any- 
way. I donno's I need to help." An' yet some- 
thin' in me always prances to pitch in, too.' 

"Timothy was there, occupying himself with 
the high places us ladies couldn't get up to. 

"*Well,' says he, *if folks stop dying, like 
Sodality evidently intends they shall if it goes 
out of business, maybe you'll stay home some, 
Amandy, and not always be oflF laying folks 
out.' 

"'I know it,' Mis' Toplady returns, ^I've 
laid out most everybody I know, and of course 
I'm real glad to do it. But the last dead's 
hair I done up, I caught myself thinking how 



MOTHERS TO MEN 317 

much more interesting it'd be if they was alive 
an' could find fault. Doin' for the dead gets 
kind of monotonous, / think/ 

"*/ don't/ says Timothy, decided. 'The 
minute you work for the living, you get all 
upset with being criticised. I s'pose the dead 
would find fault, if they could, over the way 
you cut the grass for 'em. But they can't an' 
so there's an end to it, an' we get along, peaceful. 
If they was living folks layin' there, you can bet 
they'd do some back talk.' 

"'Well,' says I, Tve been sick of Sodality for 
years. But it was about the most what-you- 
might-call society I had, and I hated to give 
it up.' 

"'Me, either,' says Mame Holcomb. 

"'Me, either,' says Mis' Uppers. 'I declare 
I've often said I wouldn't know what to do 
if folks stopped dyin' so's Sodality would have 
to close out.' 

"Mis' Sykes was setting watching the rest 
of us. 

"'Well,' she observes, cold, 'if I was usin' the 
dead to keep in society, I donno's Fd own it up.' 

"Silas Sykes had just come over from the 
store to see if there was anything he could meddle 



m. 



'Heh !' says he, showing his teeth. 'Not 



3i8 MOTHERS TO MEN 

many of Sodality, as I can see, deserves tx> die 
and be done for, civilized/ 

"* Don't you worry yourself, Silas Sykes,' 
. says I, * weVe going to be done things for before 
we die hereafter, and more civilized than ever 
you dreamed of, all up and down your ledger. 
That's where you do dream, ain't it, Silas ? ' I 
says. And though I said it gay, I meant it 
frank. 

" I remember I looked off down the room, and 
all of a sudden I see it as it would be that night, 
packed with folks. Somehow, we'd got to saying 
less about the Sodality part of the meeting, and 
more about the open part. Most of the town 
would be there. We'd got the School Board to 
leave us announce the second party for that 
night, following the meeting, and music was 
coming, and us ladies had froze the ice-cream, 
and the whole time reminded me of a big bud, 
flowered slow and bursting sudden. 

" * Land, land,' I says, fervent, * I feel like 
Friendship Village was a person that I was 
going to meet to-night for the first time.' 

"*You express yourself so odd sometimes, 
Calliope,' says Mis' Sykes, distant — -but Mis' 
Toplady and Mis' Holcomb-that-was-Mame- 
Bliss, they both looked up and nodded, and 
they knew. 



MOTHERS TO MEN 319 

"I set holding Christopher in Mis' Emmons's 
living-room, and thinking about this and most 
everything else, when I looked out and see 
Insley going along. He hadn't been back in 
town since Christopher's father's funeral, two 
days before, and I'd been wanting to talk over 
with him a thing or two that was likely to come 
up at the meeting, that of course he was going to 
be at, and that had to be handled with thimbles 
on every finger, or somebody'd get pricked. So 
I rapped smart on the upper sash and called to 
him through the screen, but not before I had 
seen the look on his face. I've caught that 
special look only once or twice in my life — the 
look of somebody passing the house that is dif- 
ferent to them from all other houses in the world. 
The look that wants to be a look and won't let 
itself be, that tries to turn the other way and 
can't start, that thinks it's unconscious and 
knows it isn't, and that finally, with Insley, 
give it up and looked Mis' Emmons'a house 
straight in the face for a minute, as if he might 
anyhow let himself have that much intimacy. 

"I had a little list of things I wanted to see 
go through that night. Enough of us was 
ready to have Sodality perform its last cemetery 
rite and bury itself so that that was pretty 
sure to go through, but I wanted more than that. 



320 MOTHERS TO MEN 

and several of us ladies did ; and it looked to me 
like the schoolhouse and the young folks and the 
milk and the meat of this town could be done 
nice things to, so be we managed the meeting 
right. I even had a wild dream that the whole 
new society might adopt Christopher. Well, I 
donno why that's funny. It ain't funny when 
a club makes a building or a play or a bazaar 
or a dinner. Why shouldn't it make a man ? 

"I told some of this to Insley, and he caught 
fire and lit up into a torch and had it all thought 
out beforehand, better than I could of dreamed 
it. But he made me feel bad. Haunted folks — 
folks haunted by something that was and that 
isn't — always makes me feel bad. How is it 
possible, I see he was asking himself the old, 
wore-out question, to drive out of the world 
something that is the world ? 

"While we talked, Christopher went off to 
sleep in my arms, and even while I was so in- 
terested, I was enjoying the change that comes — 
the head growing heavier and heavier on my 
arm, as if sleep weighed something. 
*Poor little kiddie,' I says, stupid. 
'Rich little kiddie,' Insley says, wistful. 
'Dear little kiddie,' says somebody else. 

"In the dining room doorway Robin stood — 
in a doorway as we had first seen her. 






MOTHERS TO MEN 321 



((( 



Put him over here on the couch, do/ she 
says. * It's much too hot to hold him, Calliope.' 

"She'd called me that at Mr. Bartlett's 
funeral, and I recollect how my throat went all 
over me when she done so. Ain't it funny about 
your own first name ? It seems so you when 
somebody nice says it for the first time — more 
you than you ever knew you were. 

"Insley lifted Chris in his arms to do as she 
said, and then stood staring at her across the 
child. 

"'I've been thinking,' he said, blunt — it's 
like watching the sign of folks to watch the dif- 
ferent kind of things that makes them blunt. 
*It's not my affair, but do you think you ought 
to let Chris get so — so used to you ? What 
will he do when you're — when you go away ? ' 

"At this she said nothing for a moment, then 
she smiled up at him. 

"'I meant what I told him that night his 
father died,' she answered. *I'm going to keep 
Chris with me, always.' 

"^Always ?' He stared at her, saw her face 
mean what she said. ^ How fine of you ! How 
fine of Mr. Proudfit ! ' said Insley. 

"She waited just a breath, then she met his 
eyes, brave. 

Not fine of me,' she says — *only fine for me. 

Y 



Ui 



322 MOTHERS TO MEN 

And not — Mr. Proudfit at all. I ought to take 
back what I told you — since I did tell you. 
That is not going to be.' 

"I don't think Insley meant for a minute to 
show any lack of formal respect for Christopher's 
sleep. But what Insley did was simply to turn 
and sit him down, bolt upright, on my lap. 
Then he wheeled round, trying to read her face. 

"'Do you mean you aren't going to marry 
him ? ' he demanded, rough — it's like watching 
another sign of folks to watch for the one thing 
that will make one or another rough. 

"*We are not going to be married,' she said. 
*I mean that.' 

"I suppose likely the room went away alto- 
gether, then, Christopher and me included, and 
left Insley there in some place a long ways from 
everywhere, with Robin's face looking at him. 
And he just naturally took that face between 
his hands. 

"* Robin,' he said, 'don't make me wait to 
know.' 

"Insley was the suddenest thing. And land, 
what it done to her name to have him say it. 
Just for a minute it sounded as if her name 
was the population of the world, — but with 
room for everybody else, too. 

"I think she put up her hands to take down 






MOTHERS TO MEN 323 

his hands, but when she touched them, I think 
hers must have closed over his, next door to on 
purpose. 

*Dear,' she says, *tell me afterward.' 
In that minute of stillness in which any 
new heaven is let down on a suitable new earth, 
a little voice piped up : — 

"*Tell it now,' says the voice. * Is it a story ? 
Tell it now.' 

"And there was Christopher, wide awake 
where he had been set down rude on my knee, 
and looking up at them, patient. 

"*I was dreamin' my dream,' he explained, 
polite. *It was about all the nice things there 
is : You and you and you and hot ice-cream 
and the house's party. ... Is they any more ?' 
he asked, anxious. 

"Robin put out her arms for him, and she 
and Insley and I smiled at one another over his 
head. 

"*Ever so many more,' we told him. 

" I slipped out then and found Mis' Emmons, 
and I guess I come as near shining as anything 
that's like me can. 

"* What's the matter ?' she says to me. 'You 
look as if you'd turned up the wick.' 

"*I did. They have. I won't tell,' I says. 



324 MOTHERS TO MEN 

^Oh, Mis' Emmons, I guess the meeting to-night 
won't need to adopt Christopher/ 

^^She looked up at me quick, and then she 
started shining, too. 

"*What a universe it is,' she says, ^ — what a 
universe it is.' 

"Then we went off down to the meeting 
together. And the village was wonderful to go 
through, like a home some of us had hollowed out 
of the hills and was living in, common. As 
we went walking to the schoolhouse, the side- 
walks seemed to me no more than ways dick- 
ered up to fasten us together, and to fasten us to 
them whose feet had wore the road before us, and 
to lead us to them that was coming, coming after : 
Christopher and Eph and Spudge Cadoza and 
Otie Daniel, or them like these. Otie Daniel 
had died the night before. Dr. Barrows had said 
Eph would not |be lame, but we see he wan't 
sure of the value of the boy's physical life. But 
even so, even so we had a chance with Chris, and 
we had a chance with Spudge, and we had mill- 
ions more. My feet wanted to run along them 
roads to meet the millions and my fingers tingled 
to get things ready. And as we went down 
Daphne Street to that meeting, I see how we 
all was getting things ready, and I could of sung 
out for what I saw : — 



MOTHERS TO MEN 325; 

**For Mame Holcomb, sprinkling clothes on 
the back porch and hurrying to get to the hall. 

"For Mis' Uppers, picking her currants be- 
fore she went, so's to get an early start on her 
jam in the morning. 

"For Viny Liberty, setting sponge for her 
bread loud enough so we heard her clear out 
in the street, and for Libby, shutting up her 
chicken coop that they earned their own living 
with. 

" For Mis' Toplady, driving by with Timothy, 
and her in the brown silk she'd made herself, 
like she's made all she's got. 

"For Abagail Arnold, wiping out her window 
to be filled to-morrow with the pies of her hand. 

"For little Mis' Sparks, rocking her baby 
on the front stoop and couldn't come to the 
meeting at all, 'count of having nobody to leave 
him with. 

"For them that had left cloth bleaching in 
their side yards and was savingthe price of buying 
bleached. For them that had done their day's 
work, from parlour to wood-shed, and had hurried 
up the supper dishes and changed their dress 
and was on their way to the schoolhouse. For 
them that had lived lives like this and had died 
at it. For all the little dog-eared, wore-out 
account books where every one of them women 



326 MOTHERS TO MEN 

figured out careful what they couldn't spend. 
And I looked down the street till I couldn't 
see no farther, and yet Daphne Street was 
going on, round and round the world, and acrost 
and acrost it, full of women doing the same 
identical way. And I could see away off to the 
places that Daphne Street led past, where women 
has all these things done for them and where 
the factories is setting them free, like us here 
in the village ain't free just yet, and I felt a 
wicked envy for them that can set their hands 
to the New Work, that us here in Friendship 
Village is trying so hard to get in between 
whiles. And I could see away ahead to times 
when sponge and currants and clothes and coops 
and similar won't have to be mothered by women 
'most as much as children are; but when women, 
Away Off Then, will be mothers and workers 
and general human beings such as yet we only 
know how to think about being, scrappy and 
wishful. But all the time, in their arms and in 
ours and nowheres else, lays all the rest of the 
world that is ever going to be. And something 
in me kind of climbed out of me and run along 
ahead and looked back at me over its shoulder 
and says: * Keep up, keep up. Calliope.' And 
before I knew it, right out loud, I says : * I will. 
I will.' 



MOTHERS TO MEN 327 

"An hour later, up in the schoolhouse, Silas 
Sykes stood arguing, to the top of his tone, that 
the first work of the reorganized society — that 
was to take in the whole town — had ought to 
be to buy a bargain Cupid-and-fish fountain he 
knew of, for the market square. 

" * It's going to take years and years to do — 
everything,' says Mis' Emmons to me, low. 

"But that didn't seem like much of anything 
to either of us. ^What if it is,' I says. And 
she nodded." 



T 



HE following pages contain advertise- 
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"A dainty story, with a saving salt of kindly humor." — 
Argonaut (San Francisco). 

" Charm of style, beauty of sentiment, light and gracious 
humor." — Outlook (New York). 

" An ideal book for husband and wife to read aloud together." 
*^ Evening Post (Burlington). 

"No sweeter, better idealism is to be found in the whole 
realm of literature." — Mail and Times (Des Moines). 

"Nearer being something entirely new than any book we 
have recently had." — News (Baltimore). 

" The book will be a pretty gift, alike to young people just 
announcing an engagement, and to old folks celebrating 
a golden wedding." — The Churchman (New York). 



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By zona gale 

Friendship Village Love Stories 

By the author of " Friendship Village." 

Cloth, j2mo, $1.50 

'* Whatever name * Friendship Village * goes by on the map, 
for many of us it is quite sufl&ciently identified by its resem- 
blance to a place we like to remember under the name of 
*Our Home Town/ Its cruder outlines a little softened, 
yet not completely disguised, the faces a bit idealized but 
none the worse likenesses for that — thus and in no other 
fashion would we have chosen to have its scenes pictured." 

— Boston Transcript 

Friendship Village cioth, i2mo, $j.$o 

** As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, 
and sometimes both together, so that the delighted reader 
hardly knows whether laughter or tears are fittest." — T^ 
New York Times. 

" A charming study of village life . . . full of lifelike char- 
acter portrayal, of quaint and humorous philosophy, and of 
broad and loving human sympathy." — The Westminster. 

" The characters are well drawn and the incidents hold our 
attention from their wholesome simplicity. The style is 
clear and vivid and the humor of the characterization is 
infectious." — Boston Transcript, 

" * Friendship Village ' as a whole is a book to conjure with, 
to smile and sigh over happily, to tuck up on the personal 
bookshelf where stand those favorite friends we never mean 
to part with. It alternates sunshine and flowers like an 
April day, and is as wholesomely sweet and sound in spirit." 

— Chicago Record-Herald. 



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By zona gale 



Friendship Village Love Stories 



Decorated doth, gilt top, i2mo, $1.50 



Miss Gale's pleasant and highly individual outlook 
upon life has never been revealed to better advantage 
than in these charming stories of the heart affairs of 
the young people of Friendship Village. Miss Gale 
believes that literature should be delightful The sim- 
ple, homely, village life she sees with the eye of the 
true lover of romance and holds it up for us to see, 
its reality unimpaired but clad in that beauty of hum- 
bleness which is not always appreciated by the com- 
mercial world of to-day. 

Miss Gale has been singularly successful in detach- 
ing herself from all the wear and tear of modern life 
and has produced a collection of stories filled with 
sweetness, beautiful in ideas, charming in characteri- 
zations, highly contemplative, and evidencing a philoso- 
phy all her own. 



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RECENT MACmLLAN NOVELS 



Bt HAMILTON DRUMMOND 

The Justice of the King 

Ckthf $1.20 net; by tnaUj $1.32 

There is pain in it, an old King's bitter suspicion lest his son be not 
content to wait ; there is cold hate and hot revenge in its pages, — 
but these are shadows which intensify the charm of tender love- 
making and the intense loyalty of youth. 

Bt Mrs. HUBERT BARCLAY 

Trevor Lordship Ckth, $1.20 net; by maU, $1.32 

A pleasant novel of an uncommon kind ; its love problem arises 
between two married folk ; each fears that the other's love sleeps, 
and each dreads to move lest it — fail to awake. The social setting 
of the story is particularly enjoyable. 

By JOSEPHINE DASKAM BACON 

While Caroline was Growing cioth, $1.50 

" Caroline " needs no introduction to readers of " The Biography of a 
Boy," etc. I and every one who has ever come into contact with the 
mentality of a growing girl will find in the story a deal of sympathetic 
entertainment. 

By GUSTAV FRENSSEN 

Klaus Hinrich Baas cioth, $z.so 

The Story of a Sklf-madb Man. A thoroughly remarkable novel 
is this story of the rise of a physically strong, proud German peasant. 
There is a similarity between some of the conditions described and 
those existing in this country which gives the book a peculiar interest 
to Americans. In many ways it is the most powerfully interesting 
novel of the spring season. 



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NEW MACMILLAN NOVELS OF UNUSUAL INTEREST 



Mrs. ROGER A. PRYOR'S New Novel' 

The'G)loners Stoiy 

Clothy $1,20 net; by mailf $1,32 

For those who have a tenderness for the old days of the South, or who 
know the charm of Mrs, Pryor's books of personal experience 
therein — "My Day" and "Reminiscences of Peace and War" — 
this book has an unusual charm. 

F. MARION CRAWFORD'S 

Wandering Ghosts 

Clothy $1,2$ na; by maU, $1,35 

It is uncommonly interesting that the last volume to be added to the 
long shelf of Mr. Crawford's novels should be this in which he makes 
the supernatural so vividly felt. 

GUST A V FRENSSEN'S 

Klaus Hinrich Baas 

Cloth, $1.30 

" One of those rare novels that is so veracious, so packed with the 
veritable stuff of life, that it is a genuine human document — true, but 
also universal." — Milton Bronner in The Kentucky , 

'*A big, strong, life-size portrait of a real man." — Chicago Record' 
Herald, 

JACK LONDON'S 

Adventure 

Chthy $1.50 

"There's a real story C;o *^ Adventure,* and a quite unusually good love 
interest." — Chicago Inter' Ocean, 

"A» rapidly shifting panorama of exciting incident." — Boston Trc^n* 
script. 

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IMPORTANT RECENT FICTION 



JAMES LANE ALLEN'S 

The Doctor's Christmas Eve cioth, i2mo, $i,so 

"Kentucky in its rural aspects and with its noble men and women 
forms the scenery for this romance of quaintness and homeliness 
which lovingly interprets the career of a country doctor who has lost 
&ith in life but not in ideals. Incidentally the author has interpreted 
the new spirit of American childhood in its relation to the miracles 
and legends and lore of other lands and older times, which have 
through the centuries gathered about the great Christmas festival of 
the Nativity."— iVh</ YorJk Times, 

<<What so many have so long hoped Mr. Allen would do he has 
accomplished in this work, namely a description of Kentucky and 
the blue-grass farms as seen by a youngster.'' — New York American. 

MARY S. WATTS' 

Nathan Burke cioth,z2tno,$i.so 

** It is sometimes s^id that one of the best tests of a good novel, as it 
is of a well-planned meal, is how you feel at the end. Are you 
satisfied or do you wish that at some time the performance may be 
repeated ? When one is through with ' Nathan Burke ' one thinks, 
* Vd like to read it right over again.' " — Columbus Dispatch, 

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE'S 

A Certain Rich Man cioth,i2mo,$i,5o 

" This novel has a message for to-day, and for its brilliant character 
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White's literary work, will earn a high place in fiction. It is good 
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resembles a Chinese play, because it begins with the hero's boyhood, 
describes his long, busy life, and ends with his death. Its tone is 
often religious, never flippant, and one of its best assets is its 
glowing descriptions of the calm, serene beauties of nature. Its 
moral is that a magnate never did any real good widi money." — 
Or^onian, Portland, Oregon. 



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BOOKS BY Mrs. ROGER A. PRYOR 



The ColoneFs Story 

Cloth, I2tn0y $1.20 net; by mail, $1.32 

** Full of that fascinating charm inseparable from life in the true * old 
South ' as Mrs. Pryor reproduces it with unrivalled comprehension." 

The Mother of Washington and Her Times 

Cloth, 8vo, illustrated, $2.50; by mail, $2.72 

** One of the most charming books of the season. It is by far the 
most accurate and lifelike pen portrait of this noble G>lonial Dame 
ever published." — New York Times, 

The Birth of the Nation, Jamestown, 1607 

Cloth, 8vo, illustrated, $1.7$; by mail, $1,88 

"No better book could be found to give a lively impression of the 
early days of the seventeenth century." — The Outlook, 

My Day: Reminiscences of a Long Life 

Decorated cloth, gilt top, 8vo, illustrated, 
boxed, $2.25 net; by mail, $2,43 

"A splendid story of good courage and fine achievement. Not only 
is it a valuable contribution to the annals of a period, but it is an in- 
spiring story of American * grit * and opportunity." — Albany Argus, 

Reminiscences of Peace and War 

Cloth, 8vo, illustrated, $2,00; by mail, $2,17 

"Mrs. Ftyor's narrative . . , gives a wealth of information, which is 
essential to the true understanding of history, and in a shape that 
must charm and delight the xtaAtt,'^'*^ Philadelphia Public Lecher, 



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